Envision Zimbabwe Women’s Trust is a registered local organisation operating in Zimbabwe. Registered under the notarial deed of Trust in 2009, the organization was founded by a diverse group of women, led by former Minister of Education, Dr Fay Chung, in August 2007 in response to the hyperinflationary meltdown of Zimbabwe’s economy and the widespread political violence in the build-up to and aftermath of the 2008 elections. Envision has been implementing conflict transformation projects supported by Peace Direct in the remote rural district of Hurungwe since 2012, working with traditional leaders, women, youth and faith-based organisations.  

Our aim is to stop violence and build sustainable peace and development. Acknowledging the nexus between development, conflict and security, we work from the premise that all change and development involves conflict caused by a shift in the balance of power within communities and between genders. Our development projects utilise conflict transformation techniques to address some of the long-standing challenges that primarily women and girls have been facing in Zimbabwe. We take a community-driven collaborative approach focusing on pressing issues identified by the community. Projects are continuously monitored and evaluated together with the community, identifying project gaps and altering implementation accordingly.

In Hurungwe, under our conflict transformation program, we have established sustainable violence prevention mechanisms such as Peace Committees, intergenerational women’s groups, Peace Gardens and Early Warning Early Response (EWER) platforms whose membership have been capacitated with leadership, conflict transformation knowledge and skills. All these mechanisms are monitored and supported with technical support by Envision.

Some of the mechanisms cited above, for example the Peace Gardens, promote secure spaces where community members, especially women, are able to meet and discuss challenges they face as women and how best to resolve these challenges, while at the same time ensuring food security and earning a livelihood from the produce from the gardens.  

The community solidarity and comradery generated around working the gardens together with the trainings in Womens’ Rights, Gender Equality and leadership provided by Envision has gone a long way in preventing Gender Based Violence. The establishment of Intergenerational Women’s Groups; and livelihood trainings has seen women setting up Internal Savings and Lending (ISAL) groups providing basic financial literacy for women at community level. The connections between domestic violence and poverty are intimate and demonstrate how the economic empowerment of women is an important piece of combating the violence they face.

Grace Musvuti, a training participant, said:
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‍“I am seeing a change in conflict transformation through a decrease in gender-based violence and domestic violence and we attribute this to Envision Zimbabwe trainings, knowledge was imparted to us as a community on conflict transformation. More so, as a young woman who chose to marry early I am also noticing an increase in the awareness of the need to protect the girl child in the community from social and traditional ills such as early child marriage.”

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Learn more about Envision on their website: https://envisionzimbabwe.org/