Friend --

What appears to be plain porridge quickly takes on a new twist outside the home of Syndon Samakute on a hill looking over the lush Honde Valley in eastern Zimbabwe's Manicaland province.

Samakute took up cooking when his wife, Loice Chideye, invited him to a workshop on nutrition made possible by a local organization Oxfam is involved with called INSPIRE, one of many such groups across the country. The workshop is part of a program -- run by the UN with Oxfam and funded by the British government -- that encourages couples to re-examine the gender roles they play in their families through a process called Gender Action Learning, or GAL.

Cooking is now one of the household duties Samakute and his wife share, which is rare in rural Zimbabwe, where patriarchal attitudes run deep.

"[Men] consider themselves the head of the household, and they don't cook," says Samakute. "I see men fighting new ideas, but their attitudes only lead us to underdevelopment. Men need to work with their wives."

"We have lost these old views," he adds firmly. "And we're happy."

Friend, this is the kind of work you make possible that sets Oxfam apart. Through the consortium, we are working in communities to promote gender equality and women's economic empowerment. With your help, we have a long tradition of tackling gender issues in Zimbabwe, from legal reforms to challenging harmful cultural practices.

Read more about Oxfam's gender justice work in Zimbabwe and around the world:
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The GAL program stretches across Zimbabwe and has reached 25,000 farmers. One of them is Cremio Kausiyo.

When he first heard about GAL, he was suspicious. "We thought they wanted to come and change some of our behavior, and what we are as men in our culture," he says.

But he also saw an opportunity: If men and women can have the same goals, and trust each other, they are likely to have fewer conflicts. He took the plunge and signed up for the training. It opened his eyes.

"I sat down with [my wife] and discussed what we had learned together," says Kausiyo. "That was the first time I understood what [she] wanted and the things she did not want. And she understood what I wanted and did not want."

They made a plan for the year, which they drew in a notebook: They achieved their objective to acquire another cow, and a cart. Their next plan is to enlarge their small home.

"The households that are working together are progressing more than the households that are not working together," Kausiyo says, "that is attracting a lot of members of the community."

Friend, with your help, Oxfam and our partners are helping families question the gender roles imposed by society that hold them back from working their way out of poverty.

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