Advocacy

Zvandiri has learned that the most powerful advocacy can be achieved through the meaningful engagement of young people in safe, creative, participatory story telling processes. Zvandiri has demonstrated this through a wide portfolio of advocacy materials developed and shared by Zvandiri youth, in the form of books, film, song and dance.

In 2020 Zvandiri received a grant from the HER Voice Fund which offers small grants in 13 priority countries, where the Global Fund is investing, to amplify the voices and priorities of adolescent girls and young women.

Through the ‘Her Voice, Her Story’ project funded by ViiV and implemented by Y+ Global, Zvandiri engaged adolescent girls and young women from 10 provinces of Zimbabwe in a youth-led, participatory story telling process, which provided them with an opportunity to document and share their stories and advocate for improved policy, funding and services.

Due to COVID lockdowns, an online training in the art of ‘story-telling for advocacy’ was held for ten young advocates and they were provided with guidance and tools to collect stories from their communities. A three-day workshop was then held in Harare, Zimbabwe to write and develop the stories as a group, supported by Zvandiri staff. The group of 10 advocates developed a story book ‘Her Voice, Her Story’ to highlight the challenges facing adolescent girls and young women across Zimbabwe to bring them to the attention of policy makers. Working with the HER Voice Ambassadors Zvandiri worked to disseminate the stories.

Due to the success of the project, Zvandiri secured a second grant to support 6 young women to learn further skills in advocacy and to represent their provinces as part of the executive committee of the Young People’s Network on SRH and HIV & AIDS, Zimbabwe.