THE Tanzania Gender Networking Programme (TGNP)’s Gender Festival which kicks off today in Same District, Kilimanjaro Region, is expected to bring together more than 600 participants from various parts of the country.
The three-day festival which will conclude on October 7 this year will be graced by the Kilimanjaro Regional Commissioner, Nurdin Babu.
The event will attract various women rights organizations, community based organizations and other grassroots groups to deliberate on how they can utilize available economic opportunities for their development.
TGNP Executive Director Lilian Liundi told journalists here yesterday that, “this is the first Zonal Gender Festival which is a key movement building platform which carries the women agenda and amplifies their voices throughout the country.”
Themed: ‘Economic Justice: Making Resources Work for Maginalised People for Sustainable Livelihood’, the festival will be held at the Kwasakwasa grounds in Same District, Kilimanjaro Region.
Ms Liundi said the festival aims at celebrating success, discuss the best way to use existing and emerging economic opportunities to increase decent jobs and bring sustainable life and provide an opportunity to reflect and evaluate existing challenges and how to set strategies to deal with those challenges.
She said the northern zone gender festival is a catalyst for economic rights and sustainable development geared to remove traditions, which are an obstacle to economic rights for sustainable development.
“The event will also improve access to community services to facilitate access to reproductive health services for all,” she said.
The festival will include presentations, panel discussions, exhibitions and workshops.
The discussions will build real concepts about the sub-topics in the respective day.
The last day will involve closing by putting together the issues that emerged in the various discussions on all three days of the Festival. Based on the issues raised, participants will develop strategic plans for implementation.
Exhibitions will be held throughout the days of the Festival to provide opportunities for participating organizations and networks to showcase their work through various means such as videos, posters and photos.
The gender festival is one of the TGNP’s platforms in the building of collective power and open to women and human rights stakeholders who come together every year to share experiences, celebrate, evaluate and make plans to deal with the challenges they face.
TGNP organized the very first concert in 1996 and until now about 14 concerts have been held where they have been able to bring together more than 25,000 participants (70 per cent women and 30 per cent men) in TGNP grounds.
In 2010, TGNP and its partners launched the first gender festival at the district level where until now, six gender festivals have been held at the district level and brought together more than 6,000 participants (70percent women and 30 percent men).
They were held in Kisarawe (2010), Mkambarani-Morogoro (2012), Tarime (2014), Mkambarani in Morogoro (2016), Kishapu, Shinyanga (2018) and Mbeya
