Inside the Chief’s Court: How an old institution became a platform for women’s health rights in Zimbabwe

For decades, the Dare RaMambo, Zimbabwe’s traditional chief’s council, has been a space reserved for male elders. Women did not only have a voice here. They lacked a seat entirely. Through the Dare RaMambo initiative, Shamwari YeMwanasikana brought Sexual and Reproductive Health Rights (SRHR) into the chief’s court, not by bypassing traditional authority but by working through it. Traditional leaders, headmen and village elders were invited to use their influence differently: as champions of women’s health, not gatekeepers against it.

The shift has been driven by Shamwari YeMwanasikana, which launched the Dare RaMambo initiative in Hwedza with a goal that was straightforward but ambitious, to engage traditional gatekeepers not as obstacles to progress, but as architects of it. 

The programme was built on a clear-eyed understanding of how change works in rural Zimbabwe: without the endorsement of custodial leaders, reforms rarely take root. Rather than bypassing traditional structures, the initiative worked deliberately within them, bringing SRHR conversations into the Chief’s Court and giving women’s health the cultural legitimacy it had long been denied. 

Read the full story on the MenEngage Africa website.