Clariss Rufaro Masiya is from Mutare, Zimbabwe. Clariss is passionate about defending the rights of girls, women and other groups who experience social vulnerability and marginalisation. She holds a BSc in Peace and Governance from Bindura University of Science Education. Clariss has worked with many different civil society organisations and she is currently a sitting member for the Local Works Collaborative Action Network Youth Advisory Board which is a body of 20 young people from across all the 10 provinces of Zimbabwe. Clariss has attended several trainings on conflict prevention and peacebuilding including the Youth Participation Program run by Norwegian Agency for Exchange Cooperation (NOREC) and most recently Building Peace from the Inside: Support Insider Mediation for Sustainable Transformation of Conflict, which she took part in in September 2021 at Africa University’s Institute of Peace, Leadership and Governance, Zimbabwe. Clariss loves art, literature, music and she uses writing in particular as an advocacy tool. In 2021 she was nominated for the inaugural The Continent/ Democracy In Africa Comment Prize for her opinion paper titled The Church Must Start Taking Sexual Abuse Seriously and she was also shortlisted for the Intwasa Short Story Prize in 2021 for her short story, The Thing Between My Legs which was published in the Intwasa Short Story Anthology.

Participant in:

March/April 2022 Fellowship: Peacebuilding and Women’s Meaningful Participation in Peacebuilding Processes

November/December 2022 Fellowship: Peacebuilding and Women’s Meaningful Participation in Peacebuilding Processes