Empower Tanzanian Girls Through Education

Sasa Naweza – December 2017 report

 This quarter the Sasa Naweza project has focused on three separate programs to promote the provision of education for women and girls. These programs were the distribution of sewing machines, our media project and the outreach women-training program. 

There is an increasing importance of education in East Africa as climate change is leading to a rise in child marriages as families barter their children for cows to combat the challenges of the changing environment.

 At the most simple level, we have observed an increase in women’s participation in this project as a primary indicator of the projects growing success. Specifically, our women’s empowerment program includes the distribution of sewing machines, coupled with sewing workshops and small management classes. In this quarter we have surpassed the scope of the past quarter and our goal by reaching 10 schools and 600 girls. We see this as a remarkable achievement and predict continued growth in to 2018 as we expand our program and reach more women and girls.

 Distribution of 60 sewing machines to women groups in Chunya, Mbeya rural and Temeke constituencies (see pictures) 

In poverty stricken areas of the Mybeya region, 60 sewing machines (generously provided by Pedals for Progress of United States of America) were distributed to economic empowerment projects. The provision of these sewing machines has been massively beneficial to the Sunflower Foundation’s project.

The machines were distributed to two areas namely Mybeya rural and Chunya Constituencies and Temeke Constituency in Dar es Salaam. The program has been a huge success offering both emotional support and a means of income to these women. In this regard, the women are given a certain degree of decision-making power, empowering them as well as promoting freedom and justice. These results have been seen to elevate the living standards of these women.

Media program

A second element of the Sasa Naweza project is the media outreach project. This program entails publicizing the programs outreach material via mass media to reach a wider audience. Further, this will help to reinforce material taught at our workshops by making the content available via radio and other forms of media. The media program is primarily focused on the radio and TV for the distribution of information. We operate with a number of radio stations including USHIND FM, City Radio and Mbeya FM.

 The scope of this program has doubled in this past quarter from 3 to 6 radio interviews. There has been a very good public response stemming from audience engagement via calls and texts during our radio interviews.

We have two main groups from the She Can foundation office. Firstly lawyers conducting legal aid clinics discussing women’s rights and legal support have been significant in our media programs. Secondly, economic and business management experts discussing entrepreneurship and basic business skills have been particularly influential in our radio interviews.

Women outreach training program

We have conducted 6 women training outreach programs to date in the Chunya, Mbeya rural, Temeke, Longido and Ngorongoro constituencies. Further, other training programs have been conducted from our office where approximately 30 girls have attended, completed and graduated our tailoring program. These girls have also been provided with sewing machines and are now able to start their own workshops, expanding the scope of our project further.

These 6 programs have attracted 180 women and girls from the constituencies mentioned above. This program is coupled with the distribution of sewing machines to reinforce and strengthen both programs simultaneously. The range of constituencies this quarter has meant that the outreach of the program has massively increased and we are now able to reach significantly more Tanzanian women.

Links: www.sunflowerfoundation.com.au