Margaret Cynthia Mungofa

Cynthia is a gender, HIV/AIDS and development specialist with extensive experience working at the community level with diverse groups in Zimbabwe, including sex workers and marginalized women such as widows and adolescent girls and young women towards their equitable access to sexual reproductive health and rights. She’s currently a program manager for Zimbabwe Rural Women Empowerment Trust (ZRWET) and previously worked at the Zimbabwe Women Against HIV/AIDS, Poverty and Violence (ZWAAPV). She is a writer and a singer-songwriter with a keen interest in the Afro-jazz musical genre.

Fellowship Focus
Cynthia sensitized high risk groups and marginalized women on microbicides and other viable HIV prevention options. She initiated dialogue about microbicides in order to empower women in rural areas like Murewa, where her project was based. Cynthia believes that we should strengthen advocacy around the need to expand HIV prevention tools controlled by women. Her Fellowship primarily focused on exploring what rural women know about these options and specifically microbicides, and empowering them by initiating dialogue around these strategies.

In Their Own Words
Women in developing countries, Zimbabwe included, are constrained by cultural barriers and therefore cannot initiate or decide on prevention methods to use. Therefore, interventions like microbicides are important for these women since they not only provide another safe option that they can control but also help to address strong cultural barriers that constrain women and limit access.