Transforming Tanzanian schools with Technology

We have had a busy summer in Tanzania, delivering technology training in 6 secondary schools.

We jave been training schools in more effective use of the technology they have, such as making greater use of group work, using video to prompt discussions, and using Excel for record keeping and making predictions.

In Tanzania generally girls achievement lags behind that of boys.  There are multiple reasons for this, including the additional chores girls are expected to do at home, to problems accessing menstrual protection to a lack of confidence to speak up or ask questions in class.  We have set up girls clubs in attempt to build up girls' confidence by providing them with a safe space to bring up issues that are holding them back, and to role play strategies that may help to overcome them.

To help with this we have been working with materials from Femina and Tai Tanzania, whom we are  working with to produce further materials  on different aspects of girls' schooling in Tanzania.

We also delivered training in mapping to enable schools to better measure how far students have to walk to school so they can better support them with hostel places and additional support.

We spoke about this and the work our mapping project Crowd2Map is doing to help end Female Genital Mutilation, at a big mapping conference in Dar es Salaam at the end of August, and now we have been invited to organise a mapathon at the United Nations in New York on September 28th.  To coincide with this we are also organising a global mapathon to encourage as many people across the world to take part.  There is more information here, and I hope you can join us!

Thank you again for your generosity in supporting this project.

Many of the rural government secondary schools we support have very few or no female teachers.  In many schools there is very little or no teaching around reproductive health and puberty.  This is also a taboo subject in the family meaning that many teenagers know very little about why their bodies are changing, and first menstruation can be a shock to many girls.

There are also many instances of girls becoming pregnant while at school.  For families struggling in extreme poverty this is a huge blow, to say nothing of the terrible consequences for the girl concerned.  Abortion is illegal in Tanzania (although some girls resort to desperate measures to try to induce this) and the President has recently decreed that any girls getting pregnant have forfeited any right to an education.  

Therefore we are working with groups of female teachers to get electronic versions of resources about reproductive health and  girls'rights into schools in a cost effective way.  These will be used in girls' clubs in which girls are encouraged to discuss matters that they are concerned about in a supportive environment.

So thank you again for your generosity which is helping empower girls in rural Tanzania.