Vimbainashe Meda (Zim)
Vimbainashe has seven years of experience in the nonprofit sector, and earned a Bachelor’s of Law from the University of Cape Town in South Africa and a Master’s degree in Women’s Law from the University of Zimbabwe. While working as a Program Officer for Musasa, the leading nonprofit in Zimbabwe addressing gender based violence, she gained a wealth of knowledge in the area of prevention and response to violence against women and girls (VAWG).
Through her work managing the direct services department made up of counselling, shelters and legal services she acquired in depth understanding of the challenges faced by women in family structures as well as the impediments to women’s access to justice in gender based violence cases. Her work in this area also entailed building and maintaining
relationships with multi-sectoral players in the response to GBV including law enforcement agents, government and other non-governmental partners. She has an in-depth knowledge of laws and policies related to VAWG in Zimbabwe, including the Domestic Violence Act, marriage laws and the Constitution and part of her work involved training on laws and policies for women and girls in rural communities.
Her work experience coupled with her training in Women’s Law has given her practical experience of the feminist theories and perspectives as well as methodological approaches such as grounded theory, case studies and the women’s law approach. She appreciates the impact of patriarchy on women’s access to justice and the economics that impede women’s ability to move on from domestic violence situations.
Previously, Vimbainashe worked for a regional HIV/AIDS information service, SAFAIDS, focusing on child
friendly information production and dissemination and child rights education. Over the years she has developed strong project management as well as service provision skills as her work has also included provision of legal services to indigent women. She has strong facilitation, analysis and report writing skills and in particular listening to and documenting cases studies reflecting women’s lived realities in the area of GBV. She has a strong passion for gender and women’s rights. She is currently the Gender and Social Norms Advisor with Musasa working on a PEPFAR supported DREAMS initiative in Zimbabwe. She is a member of the Zimbabwe Gender Commission Thematic working group on gender, Socio-cultural and religious issues