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Engaruka visit, Part 2

Posted on May 15, 2012 by Daudi

Last week, Empowered Girls program coordinator Upendo Lobaya visited our two partner schools in Engaruka, Tanzania. Upendo held seminars focusing on adolescence and pregnancy. She filed this summary of her talks.

Upendo talks with girls at Engaruka Juu

UNWANTED PREGNANCY
Definition: Pregnancy that is untimely and unacceptable to parents, partner, and the society in general. The adolescent girl may not be physically, emotionally and socially ready to be pregnant.

Causes of unwanted pregnancies
Early marriage, unavailability of family planning services, poor knowledge of human sexuality and the reproductive system, fear or myths about contraceptives, misinformation about sexuality, parents avoiding discussion about sex fearing it may encourage wrong behaviors, cultural gender inequality coercing a girl into sexual intercourse, poor self-esteem of girls to resist pressure.

Effects
Young women who become pregnant face higher risks than older women of developing the following complications: Anemia, pre-eclapsia, premature and low birth weight babies, high blood pressure during pregnancy which is one of the commonest complications.

How to prevent it
• Developing essential life skills
• Knowledge about reproductive system
• Increase of contraceptives knowledge

ABORTION
Note: Abortion is illegal in Tanzania, but it is still a common and dangerous practice that kills many girls. Rape and coerced sex with vulnerable girls are also problems that often result in unwanted pregnancies. Girls and women are rarely empowered to use contraceptives.

Definition: The ending of pregnancy before the fetus is able to live outside the mother’s body.

Three types:
• Spontaneous abortion: Occurs without any deliberate manipulation to terminate the pregnancy.
• Induced abortion: Termination of pregnancy is intentionally performed; the reasons may be a serious maternal disease jeopardizing the life of the mother in which case the procedure is termed a therapeutic abortion.
• Illicit abortion: At high risk for severe infection, hemorrhage, or death. Occurs mostly in women who are young and unmarried.

Discussion
• Since girls usually lack funds and information to get safe abortion, they resort to illegal and unskilled abortionists who operate with dirty instruments in unclean surroundings. I advised them to avoid abortion.
• Consequences are many, including: maternal death, infection, injury to reproductive organs, disabilities and pelvic inflammatory disease of infertility.
• To avoid the problem from the beginning: Abortion is one of the most dangerous things a girl can do. It is illegal. Christians and Muslims have moral arguments against it. The best way to avoid the problem is to delay sex until you are socially, emotionally, and financially ready to take care of a baby.
• If you don’t want to have sex, avoid situations where you are vulnerable. If you insist of having sex, use a condom every single time.
• Unwanted pregnancy is bad. HIV/AIDS is far worse.
• Men sometimes make promises that they are unable to keep. Your sisters and friends know this is true. So don’t follow them into the mistakes they have made.

Upendo hands out sanitary pads to girls at Oldonyo Lengai Secondary school. More photos here.

Other topics
Female Genital Mutilation: Some primary school girls still have the mentality of being circumcised (removal of clitoris’ hood, a tradition among Maasai). I told them about the risks such as over-bleeding during birth, scars, and enduring pain.
Personal hygiene: I handed out sanitary pads and taught them how to use them and we talked about personal hygiene.

Some questions from the girls:
Is there any side effect to use family planning for us as youth?
What is homosexuality?
Does a circumcised girl feel sexual desire?

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged empowered, engaruka, seminar | Leave a comment

Engaruka visit, Part 1

Posted on May 14, 2012 by Daudi

Last week, Empowered Girls program coordinator Upendo Lobaya visited our two partner schools in Engaruka, Tanzania. This is a rural ward that contains two villages, and the semi-arid area is home to Maasai people. The area has high incidence of teenage pregnancy and many girls are taken as wives before age 12. Upendo held seminars focusing on adolescence and pregnancy. She filed this summary of her talks.

Upendo leads a seminar at Oldonyo Lengai Secondary School

ADOLESCENCE

Definition: The adolescent period is the time when physical, emotional and social changes takes place with the growth of the body at puberty. The sexual feeling of love and being loved unfold then.

Need for information: At this time the youth need closer guidance on how to go through things in front of them but most African parents do not talk to their children about love and contraception because they fear it would encourage the youth to become sexually active. Even daughters are afraid to ask their mothers about sexuality and contraception so they find their peers as the principle source of information. They often take wrong information from friends due to low level of information.

Consequences of ignorance: Early onset of sexual activity can lead to the following risks: having multiple sexual partners, contraction of sexually transmitted diseases such as HIV/AIDS, unwanted pregnancies, unsafe/illegal abortion, reproductive problems associated with young childbirth, social stigmatization from pregnancy or infection

Levels of awareness of adolescents
The levels of awareness of adolescent on reproductive health conditions may differ depending on their age and exposure; these levels have divided into four categories
Level one: Many adolescents are categorized by ignorance or by a who-cares attitude towards high risk sexual behavior. They are not yet aware enough to change their behavior.
Level two: Are those who have some knowledge of the risky situations and behaviors, but are not ready to take action.
Level three: Are also aware of their risky behaviors and are ready to take the action, but do not go all the way to take action. Many avoid risky behavior, but only part of the time when it’s convenient.
Level four: People have not only knowledge and awareness but have undergone attitudinal and behavioral changes. Such young people are actively involved in fighting risky sexual behaviors and gender imbalances. I advised the girls to be in level four.

An Oldonyo Lengai student asks a question during an Empowered Girls meeting.

Discussion

We discussed things which adolescent see as positive to them which are to be assertive, to love and be loved, to value virginity, controlling sexual desire, desire to display beauty, need to attract boys, desire to marry and establish a family, and others.

We also addressed risks and consequences, including: Unwanted pregnancy, abortion, unsafe sexual behaviors, sexual transmitted disease and HIV/AIDS, rape, prostitution, false perception of sexuality, multiple sexual partners. You should control your desire so as to avoid being at risk. Also, there are ways we can avoid risky situations.

Next in Part Two: Pregnancy, abortion, and risks.

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Intro for Form 1 students: What is Empowered Girls

Posted on April 25, 2012 by Daudi

Last week, Empowered Girls club at Enaboishu had a short introductory meeting for the new girls who might be interested in joining. After the meeting, 72 Form 1 (freshmen) students registered as club members. Upendo, our program coordinaor, and Mrs. Martin, the club’s faculty adviser led the session. Upendo shares this summary:

The club was started in 2010 by Kellen. We told the girls that in the club, they will gain a lot in life skills, most of which African parents cannot tell their children but we can, and we can help the girls learn how to overcome problems.

I mentioned good things available in the club, such as essay writing competitions, songs, drama, etc. concerning girls and society. These things can help improve girls’ English and life skills.

After the short introduction, we came to other points as follows:

Know yourself
I told the girls: Know who you are and what you are supposed to do as students, and that this is the only way to reach your goals. By knowing yourselves (understanding self-image and self-esteem) you can avoid liars. You are each so special, more than diamonds, so every girl needs to take care of herself.

Relationship and studies
I said: There is a time for everything. Doing things at the wrong time will bring you into problems. You are at school for learning and nothing else. True love is from your parents and guardians who pay your school fees. All others who attempt to tell you that they love you are big liars. They only destroy your future and leave you with no way forward.

Mrs. Martin added: Most Form 1 (freshmen) girls are lied to by the upper classes because they are so young and naive. Older boys/men buy them chips of 200 shillings ($0.18 US) that was given by their parents, and somehow girls think they have gotten a boy who loves them. Joining EG club will equip you with tricks to answer the men who think they have better words with which to trick you.

Friend selection
Mrs. Martin said: Girls, be aware of the kinds of friends you keep. Let your good behaviors change others, and don’t let others’ bad behaviors change yours. Many students come to school behaving good, but they change. You come here alone and you will go back home alone, so be careful.

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Now it’s A-level: Standards keep dropping in Tanzanian education

Posted on April 22, 2012 by Daudi

Recent news says thousands of students are passing primary school and being admitted to secondary school because some Standard 7 nationals exams were ‘watered down’ (chakachua). The government continues on it course of building shule za kata, local ward schools, and admitting students, even though there are typically not enough teachers, desks, books, or even chalk. Schools with student-teacher ratios worse than 100:1 are common in rural areas.

The government this year decided to lower the bar for entrance into advanced-level schools. It’s essentially an expansion of its O-level policy from 2005 that saw a dramatic rise in the number of students in secondary school, and a dramatic drop in the quality of education. Now, more students have been accepted to government A-level schools, meaning they will pay much less than those who go to private schools. Thus, the number of students at some private-school a-level sections has been halved. Now those private schools are stuck with a choice: Lower admission requirements, raise school fees, or shut down their A-levels. The result is that A-level scores in both government and private schools will go down, following the trend started around 2007 in O-level schools.

Here’s the danger: As dominos fall, the ability of university students decreases, more graduates lack skills for the workforce leaving them unemployed and in debt, professional jobs are taken by the few who are educated in elite schools and foreigners. Urbanization continues, but unskilled jobs in cities are few. Income inequality widens, exposing dangerous social problems.

Tanzania is not in for a revolution or big social unrest. Yet. But if the education system continues on its current trajectory, we’re going to have an ugly situation in our smiliing, peaceful country within a generation.

Two things to know about economic/social upheavals in Africa:

1. Groups that are vulnerable in good times take the brunt of the problems in bad times. That means women and children are the first and the worst to be hit.

2. Empowering women and children is the most effective way to protect families against the shocks that come with those upheavals.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged a-level, analysis, education | Leave a comment

Problems facing day students

Posted on April 20, 2012 by Daudi

There are two types of secondary schools (high schools) in Tanzania. In boarding schools, students live in dormitories and go home only for holidays, about three times a year. In day schools, students commute to school every day from wherever they live.

Boarding is ideal and keeps students in a learning environment 24/7, but many families can’t afford to pay room & board. Most schools in the country are boarding, but some schools have no dormitories. Others, such as our partner school Enaboishu, are mixed. Our program coordinator Upendo talked with three girls there about the problems they face as day students.

1. Elizabeth Maiko
Elizabeth is a Form 4 student. She is coming from Kijenge, which requires her to use two public buses and a 2-kilometer walk to get to school. She is in day because her parents could not afford boarding. Eliza fails to come to school on time because of the distance from home to school, transport problems, and chores at home she has to help her parents with before school. Here is how Elizabeth outlined her problems:

Transport
This is the big obstacle to her success because the conductors can refuse to take students. They sometimes take only few, so she has to wait till she gets the chance. (note: in the public transport system, students in school uniform are only required to pay 1/3 of the usual bus fare for adults. Conductors often refuse to let students board, instead letting the bus fill up with adults and leaving the students stranded until a kind or desperate conductor comes along.)

Rainy season
During the rainy season Elizabeth doesn’t want to come to school because she arrives cold and wet and she cannot have enough concentration in class.

Disturbances from men
Some men seduce her and others flirt. If she keeps quiet and does not flirt back she gets insults. Elizabeth says, “To avoid to be insulted I have to answer their greetings or anything they ask and continue with my activities”.

At home Elizabeth has a very distracting environment with noises and so many other people who are there, making it hard to concentrate on homework. Whereby a boarding student cannot get time for all those.

At school, she gets punishment for coming late and low performance due to lack of enough time to study. The girl use the time she gets at school to study so as to improve her studies.

2. Devina Ernest
Next was Devina, a Form 1 student from Usa River. The girl faces the same problems of transport where she has to pay as an adult (500 sh, or $0.30 US) instead of as a student. She says, “ I am not getting enough time to study, because I have a lot of activities to do at home”. Devina is only three months into her first year.

3. Loveness Gerald
Loveness is a Form 2 student, living at Engosengiu. Her home area is very far from school, she has to use two cars and walk a long distance before reaching school. The girl faces similar problems like transport: Loveness faces the hard time on the way to school due to discrimination by bus drivers and conductors. Even when she leaves home early, she can use one or two hours waiting for transport. She says students can be also packed into the bus like luggage and the roads are rough so she gets to school/home tired.

The transport became more difficult to her because of the behavior of some of conductors and bus drivers who use the opportunity to get the students for the aim of destroying their future. Loveness says, “They seduce you. If you refuse, they don’t take you. Only those older drivers take us, but the young ones may not accept to take you.” She says it is better to come late to school than to accept the conductors’ advances just to get transport.

During rainy seasons (March through May) Loveness says walking long ways in the rain causes problems. Sometimes she gets fever and low concentration in class.

At home the girl does not have many activities to work on so she has enough time to study. Her only cry is transport.

In general, the girls say they make sure any free time at school is used to study.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged education, enaboishu, girls, transport | Leave a comment

An Empowered Girl tells about her trip to the U.S.

Posted on April 12, 2012 by Daudi

Jackie (wearing sweater) acts in an Empowered Girls skit at Enaboishu Secondary School in 2011.

Jackline Mlay is a member of the Empowered Girls club at Enaboishu Secondary School in Arusha, Tanzania. In her life, she has faced big challenges, including the death of her parents, but she is a kind, hard-working girl and a good student and we are so proud of her. Last year she was chosen from many applicants to participate in the Youth Leadership Exchange Program through Bold Leaders (boldleaders.com) and the U.S. Department of State. She spent a month in Denver and Washington, D.C., and she wrote this about how the trip has changed her:

Being in America helped me to make a step beyond. I learnt that it is important to do what I think is right and not what people want me to do. Being in America made me to realize what was in me that I never knew about. Also the program that I went for(youth leadership program) helped me in overcoming limiting beliefs – those that say I can’t do it , I’m a loser and others. I realized that no one can ever make another’s story and only you can create a story about yourself. America helped me on how to manage my time and showed me the advantages of having good time management. America, together with the program and the people I met when I was there, helped me have an open and wide mind that can think deeply about a matter, imagine, and create.

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Meet Upendo Lobaya, our new program coordinator

Posted on April 11, 2012 by Daudi

We had been looking for a full-time program coordinator since Neema, who we trained and hired, got pregnant and declined to continue with us. We’re happy for her and her husband, but we’re also happy that our search led us to Upendo. She’s smart, computer savvy, and passionate about girls’ education and women’s rights.

She shows her fire when debating gender issues with old-fashioned thinkers — a trait that will be very useful. She shows that she has been empowered along her journey and she will be a good example to our students. We love her organizational skills, proactive approach, and her spirit. Here’s her introduction note.

wpid-398712_300718546648136_100001299783793_766198_1065528549_n-2012-04-11-13-49.jpeg
Upendo Lobaya, our new program coordinator

I am a Maasai girl from Arusha-Arumeru. I am the second-born among six children. I got my primary education at Nambere Primary School then I joined Mkuu Secondary School for ordinary-level studies. I performed well and joined Masama Girls High School for advanced-level studies. From 2008 to 2011 I was at the University of Dodoma taking Bachelor of Arts in International Relations.

I am now working with Empowered Girls, educating girls to be more aware of themselves and life skills in general. I will work to bring that awareness to all four of our partner schools and beyond. I really appreciate the work of Empowered Girls.

Let’s join together to educate girls and women because if you educate a woman, the whole society will be educated.

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Periods, pads, and school attendance

Posted on April 2, 2012 by Daudi

Girls celebrate their gifts at Oldonyo Lengai Secondary School.

For four or five days every month, most girls in village schools go into hiding. They take an old rag, which has been used for months for this very purpose, they line their underwear with it, and they stay away from the classroom. There are a few relavant background facts:

• Most girls in village schools are very poor. They can’t afford disposable items, including sanitary pads for their periods.
• They probably have only one or two pairs of underwear, which are washed and reworn daily.
• Girls in developing countries often get urinary tract infections. Reusing old rags doesn’t help.
• A girl who misses a week of classes every month is at a major disadvantage compared to her male classmates.

Our director, Kellen, and our intern, Bryn, bought several boxes of pads from a wholesaler in Arusha town. They loaded them onto the bus and delivered them to Oldonyo Lengai Secondary School, our partner school in rural Engaruka. Most of the girls had never seen them, so they were taught how to use them. Kellen & Bryn taught the girls how to apply them and how to dispose them. Each girl was given a small supply.

They also went to our partner school Engaruka Juu Primary School about 5 kilometers away. They held a seminar for the Standard 7 girls (7th grade, the last year of primary school) and Standard 6 girls. All of the girls who wanted them were given a supply, though several had not started their first menstral period yet and did not take any.

We should take nothing for granted. This small, disposable gift empowers Engaruka’s girl students to stay in class.

Kellen teaches girls at Engaruka Juu Primary School how to use pads.

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International Women’s Day: Honoring an empowered girl

Posted on March 8, 2012 by Daudi

Today, I celebrate International Women’s Day by honoring one woman’s undaunted ability to conquer obstacles.

I met her in 2007. Her dad had been laid off from his job on a tea estate in the emerald hills of western Uganda for a few years. Her mother was a subsistence farmer. Their small plot of land was enough to feed the family, but often not enough to pay school fees. At the end of Form 4, she was kicked out of school for lack of fees. She then went to a very poor school in her mother’s ancestral village, where she got lucky and was able to take the place of another girl who was kicked out after getting pregnant.

She performed well on the national exams, but her parents made arrangements to marry her off. She refused, severing her relationship with her dad. She stuggled and with the financial help of friends and relatives and even teachers, she made it through Form 6.

Her dad came around and saw how determined she was to go to the top university in East Africa. He sold some of the family’s plot and his motorcycle — a prized relic of his salaried days — and helped her pay tuition.

At university, she often didn’t have enough to pay. She just kept studying, sometimes hungry. Having to fundraise from relatives and friends distracted her from coursework. She faced cruelty from relatives, abuse, and long commutes to a campus filled with the well-dressed children of the country’s elite. She studied education/economics, a male-dominated major.

She finished her degree program and got several offers to teach economics, but she chose to immigrate to Tanzania. She learned Swahili and taught at two schools around Arusha. In the classroom, she saw how so many girl students are hindered by their environment and by problems within themselves, with the few girls who take economics performing poorly and having low expectations.

In visits to the countryside she was touched by girls who suffered conditions worse than her own. Among them from just one village are girls who were forcibly married before age 10, victims of labor and sex trafficking, teenage widows, and girls denied a chance to attend school. She knew their names and their stories and she cried with them.

She worked long days. She taught students that they can rise above their poverty, that obstacles are there to make them stronger, and that success is an option. She weaved into her econ classes lessons on study skills, time management and goalsetting. The school achieved its best results in memory on the economics portion of the national exams.

Many of her students kept in touch with her after she moved to the US. Among them are many in university. One of them, Emanuel, last September heard she was back in town and invited her and her family to his home for a meal. He’s an architecture student at the University of Dar es Salaam who earned a government scholarship. “I owe my success to Madame Kellen,” he told me.

I take the occasion of Women’s Day to honor Kellen. She is my wife and a founder of Empowered Girls East Africa. She has dedicated her time and talent to equipping girls in Tanzania with life skills and resources for success. She credits God for answering her prayers in tough times, and she is now in Tanzania helping vulnerable girls break free from poverty of mind and money. “I want to see a generation,” she says, “of girl leaders and heroes.”

Kellen talks with the Empowered Girls club at Oldonyo Lengai, one of our partner schools, in August.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged kellen | 2 Comments

Mwaya’s Form 4 exam results for 2011

Posted on February 19, 2012 by Daudi

The six students at Mwaya who got Cs or better get to continue with their secondary education.

Tanzania’s 2011 national exam results are out for Form 4. The results, as a whole, are quite painful. More than 426,000 students took the exam, pinning their hopes of continuing in their education on these results. An overwhelming majority failed or got Ds (Division 4), leaving them with few options.

Empowered Girls since 2010 has been partnering with Mwaya Secondary School in Kyela District and Chocolate University, an outreach of Askinosie Chocolate in Springfield, Missouri. We’ve started an Empowered Girls club, which holds seminars every other Friday and occasional contests. We facilitated two $5,000 purchases of textbooks, with funds donated by Chocolate University and Springfield Southeast Rotary. Most books were for Form 1 and Form 2 English and sciences. We want to see improved test scores.

In 2011, the school placed 110/163 in the region, and 2606/3108 nationally. All but five of the girls at Mwaya failed the exam. The five who passed got Ds, meaning they still can not go on to the next stage of secondary school.

For individual subjects, the list below shows Mwaya’s ranking nationally as a percentile. The line for civics, for example, means that Mwaya’s averaged results for the civics exam were better than 16.1 percent of schools in the country in 2010, and better than 9.5 percent of schools in 2011.

Subject        2010        2011
Civics                 16.1        9.5
History         36.8        13.1
Geography         33.1        22.8
Kiswahili         61.8        40.7
English         6.2        15.5
Physics         34.3        25.6
Chemistry         68.0        20.5
Biology         63.1        34.8
Basic Math         29.0        28.7

The school’s only science teacher, whose name is Happy, left early in 2011 and was never replaced. This is reflected in the big decline in scores for chemistry and biology. Our textbook push was focused heavily on the lower grades, meaning the fruits of that effort are expected to start to be seen on the 2013 and 2014 exams.

Nationally, 57 percent of the school candidates who took the exam in 2011 were boys. At Mwaya, 71 percent were boys. More than half of the girls who attend Form 1 at Mwaya drop out before reaching Form 2. Anecdotally, we can say that is due largely to failure to pay school fees, pregnancy, parents preferring to educate boys, and parents’ need for labor on farms and at home.

The government does not include Ds (Division 4) in its stats for the number of students who failed. But most of those who got Ds will not have the option to continue on in secondary school, so it is effectively failing. The number of students who passed, according to the government’s definition, increased by 2.6 percent from the previous year to 53.4 percent.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged education, empowered, mwaya, statistics, tanzania | Leave a comment

Mwaya’s Form 4 exam results for 2011

Posted on February 19, 2012 by Daudi

Empowered Girls since 2010 has been partnering with Mwaya Secondary School in Kyela District and Chocolate University in Springfield, Missouri. We’ve started an Empowered Girls club, which seminars every other Friday and occasional contests. We facilitated two $5,000 purchases of textbooks, with funds donated by Chocolate University and Springfield Southeast Rotary. Most books were for Form 1 and Form 2 English and sciences. We want to see improved test scores.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged education, empowered, mwaya, statistics, tanzania | Leave a comment

Why girls?

Posted on January 26, 2012 by Daudi

Why is it so important to equip girls in East Africa? Kellen spoke at a Rotary luncheon a few weeks ago and we answer that question in photos and captions.

Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments

Observations from EG Enaboishu adviser

Posted on January 19, 2012 by Daudi

Mrs. Martin is the faculty adviser for the Empowered Girls club at Enaboishu Secondary in Arusha.

Mrs. Martin filed this report on some observations from a year of working specifically with girls:

• We have learnt that many girls lack confidence in themselves and they do not believe “they can.” However, once encouraged and reassured, they come out and shine.

• Also, some of them do not know they are valuable. This comes from their culture and traditions of being pushed back, thinking that girls cannot do anything in society. This can be seen in the fact that very few dare to enter competitions.

• Girls need quality advise on how to handle common situations that cause many to make heavy mistakes. Common questions asked by girls include
        - Won’t my boyfriend leave me if I do not have sex with him?
        - If I love a boy and he loves me too, is it bad if I make love with him?
        - I gave my body to my boyfriend. Now he is chasing other girls. What should I do to him?

• Girls need more resources. Some needs:
        - Building a hostel for them
        - Rescuing girls and women from bad traditions and culture
        - Getting more scholarships to educate more girls
        - Vocational training

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged empowered, enaboishu | Leave a comment

Difficult questions from girls

Posted on January 19, 2012 by Daudi

Mrs. Martin hands out candy after practice for an Empowered Girls skit and song for Enaboishu’s Form 4 graduation. They were refining their message, preparing to bring it to a big and captive audience on graduation day.

Mrs. Martin, the faculty adviser of the Empowered Girls club at Enaboishu Secondary School, collected a few of the most difficult questions that students have confided in her with. Here are two

1. Madam, I had taken a friend home to visit during a holiday break. Months later, I discovered that the friend was carrying out an affair with my father. When I asked my friend, she answered, “Your father prmised to give me money and continue helping me with my basic needs.” Madam, what have I done to my mother? What will she think of me?
• Be strong. Talk to your friend – and even other friends – about the risks being greater than the benefit from doing such a thing. And do not bring any more friends home.

2. Madam, my parents are extremely poor. We live in a hut that has a roof that lets in most of the rain. My mother is crippled and she moves by dragging herself around on her bottom. My father works as a labourer in other people’s farms. When I completed Standard 7, I got a family that paid for my secondary school education. Now in Form III, the man who pays my school fees threatened to withdraw his sponsorship if I do not go to bed with him. His wife has been like a mother to me. I do not dare to tell her because it will kill her. My parents will not mind it at all. Madam, why should I not end my life?
• My daughter, don’t give up. Do not think of ending your life because God will open the door to you by giving you sponsorship that will not be like the man who is causing this pain. And one day you will become a very good mother and a very good leader. Stop crying. God is able!

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged empowered, enaboishu, girls | Leave a comment

Meet our program coordinator, Neema

Posted on January 18, 2012 by Daudi

Neema trained with co-director Kellen in October.

Empowered Girls’ new program coordinator, Neema Mbise, started work this week as the new school year began. She brings her social work background and a calm passion for girl education. She introduces herself:

In my family we are seven children: four brothers and three sisters. I come from Arusha Region and now I am married.

I finished my secondary education in 2000 at Machame Girls Secondary School. From there, I joined Momesco Training College for a two-year secretarial certificate, which I finished in 2007. Thereafter I joined the Institute of Social Work at Dar es Salaam for a certificate in social work. I continued with diploma course, which I finished last year.

Personally, girls’ issues are very important because I love girls. It makes me feel good to help them defeat the problems that they face.

Something that I really love about Empowered Girls is how girls are helped to know themselves and know their rights, and also how the organization facilitates them in education, such as through essay writing, which encourages them to doing well in their studies and pass their exams.

I am so grateful to be a member of Empowered Girls and to work for girls’ success.

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Engaruka visit, Part 2

Engaruka visit, Part 1

Intro for Form 1 students: What is Empowered Girls

Now it’s A-level: Standards keep dropping in Tanzanian education

Problems facing day students

An Empowered Girl tells about her trip to the U.S.

Meet Upendo Lobaya, our new program coordinator

Periods, pads, and school attendance

International Women’s Day: Honoring an empowered girl

Mwaya’s Form 4 exam results for 2011

Mwaya’s Form 4 exam results for 2011

Why girls?

Observations from EG Enaboishu adviser

Difficult questions from girls

Meet our program coordinator, Neema

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