SIA OBSERVES INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY 2022

Sport in Action (SIA) today 8th March, 2022 joins the rest of the world in celebrating the achievement of girls and women under the theme, “Gender equality today for a sustainable tomorrow”.

As a sport-for-development organization, we wish to reaffirm SIA’s commitment to advancing gender equality in our communities where we operate from, and the country at large as the organization recognizes that equality is beneficial for the development of the country.

Since inception, SIA has continued to make huge strides in ensuring equality and development of girls and women through the implementations of various strategies using sport which we believe is a powerful tool for social and economic change.

As part of our contributions to mitigating the barriers that girls and women face, SIA has come upon with activities that help to eliminate challenges they face. Using sport, we have successfully managed to bring on board different age-groups and people from different walks of life through the creation of sports community development hubs in communities.

We believe that if we strengthen these hubs, we will create an environment for girls and women to interact and come up with solutions towards addressing the barriers they face.

Our efforts to combat Sexual Gender Based Violence and all forms of violence reach beyond our areas of operation, and include supporting the development of girls and women in friendly environments is through the creation of Boys in Action groups.

Noting that we have very few activities that target men and boys with some being perpetrators of violence, the action groups help engage boys and young men at a tender age to inculcate the knowledge and skills for them to contribute to a better environment where women can thrive.

It must be noted that over 650 children and young people living with disabilities have been involved in our programmes, with 60 percent of the population taken by girls. SIA has gone further to create a comprehensive fund to help young people unable to go to school. We are providing school requisites for them to further their education.

Through social enterprise activities, SIA managed to acquire five sewing machines distributed in communities in Lusaka and so far over K15,000 has been realised by girls and women who were making facemasks. We believe that if we strengthen such activities, more girls will access financial resources which they will plough back in their communities.

In conclusion, SIA takes this opportunity to thank all the girls and women for their resilience despite the challenges they go through. We believe that if we create a better environment for girls and women, the world will be a better place to live in.

In addition, we would like to thank the government and key partners for the environment they have created for us to operate in various districts. This environment has enabled us to come up with key strategies to create a better environment for girls and women in areas of operation.