I really like Tanzania. The weather is
still a disappointment (the sun cream remains sorrowfully in the suitcase) but
I enjoy wandering or driving around Arusha. Wowed by the sight of a towering
glass hotel or the pristine houses behind cream walls; watching the busy
inhabitants going about everyday life as they hurry past with mobile phones and
notebooks. Despite these trimmings of globalisation there remains the
intrinsically African: The woman cooking huge corn on the cob in a big pan at
the entrance to a compound; the boy navigating his bike expertly through
pedestrians and traffic despite the huge, towering load of boxes and bundles.
The wafting smells of spices and Chai Tea – which is the most delectable
substance ever – permeates the air and right now the crickets are bashing out a
dusk chorus like no other.
Today has been spent training partners
CASEC and PWC (The Pastoral Women’s Council), part of the capacity building
programme which runs alongside our overseas girls’ education projects. They
will then go and deliver the training to the schools with which they work.
Today and tomorrow is all about
Safeguarding Children, in particular, girls.
Girls in Tanzania frequently do not complete their education. In the districts
in which our partners work the statistics speak for themselves, 48% of girls
will complete Form 4 (GCSES) in Mbulu and Kilolo; 36% in Ngoronogoro – a mostly
Maasai district.
The challenges they face are sobering:
forced marriage, a cultural tradition which favours boys education above girls;
a long and arduous distance to travel to school and violence. Violence often on
the way to school, violence sometimes within school, and violence in the
unsupervised ‘ghettoes’, buildings close to the schools where girls sleep
because it is too far to go home. They are vulnerable. They are targets. PWC
and CASEC are making startling changes in partnership with the schools and
communities in which they work. Educating school boards, communities and
teachers is a big part of it.
I’ve learned a lot about the structures
within Tanzania today that support child protection – the ten councils in
villages (someone who holds responsibility for the 10 houses around them);
traditional laws which have to be taken into account when working with the 120
ethnic groups and the existing national laws and child protection policy which
are there to be implemented. We had interesting discussions around the cultural
differences between Africa and the UK, and perhaps the wider ‘west’. In
Tanzania it is legal to cane a child, with strict restrictions on the number of
times, the parts of the body which can be caned and the person who can do it
(the Head of the School). Whilst Alfred Sakafu, Director of CASEC said that
experiencing it “made him what and who he is”, I struggle to understand this
from my inevitably ‘western’ viewpoint. On the other hand, it is completely
against the law in Tanzania to smack a child and the suggestion was met with
abject and complete horror by the Tanzanians present. I distinctly remember my
mother smacking me on a very few occasions and yes, to a certain extent, it probably
made me what and who I am.
There was however agreement on one central
point. The way to protect a child is to empower them to protect themselves. As
Simon Daffi, from CASEC put it: “Children should be taught their rights because
until they are taught them, they can’t claim them and until they claim them
they can’t exercise them”.
Val Bishop
Head of Communications
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