Protecting Tanzanian Women and Girls from Violence

It takes a lot to fight abuse of women and girls in our community. We at UZIKWASA have learned that every man, woman and young person must join hands. It also needs strong leaders from government sectors, religious institutions and from schools to work together for a safe and violence free environment.

With your help UZIKWASA has brought a reflective leadership and gender justice training to every primary school in Pangani District. This high-impact four-day intervention has led to impressive progress among school committees specifically, and local leadership in general. Every school has now established a “safe system” for children to report violence and abuse without fear to trusted teachers who care to listen and who provide emotional support to the children as they tell their horrific stories of suffering.

Those teachers refer cases to the school committee who work with community leaders and police to make sure that perpetrators are brought to justice and children are protected from further abuse. Zubera is a teacher at Mwera Primary School. She participated in an UZIKWASA training on abuse and violence against children and she has this to say:

“Children used to be afraid to share their stories {about violence}, but now we know that if you are close to them and listen to them, they will tell you all about it. They even cry forcefully when they tell you {their stories}. We thank UZIKWASA for the support. We, as adults and teachers have decided to listen more closely to our children and discuss with them their stories.”

With your financial support, this year we could reach an impressive number of 2467 individuals in Pangani: 254 village and district leaders participated in reflective leadership trainings, 413 leaders from 14 villages received personal leadership coaching, and 178 leaders from six villages were assisted to develop and implement powerful action plans to fight gender violence in their respective village. Five school committees and District stakeholders, a total of 295 people, were trained and 1257 villagers attended community participatory theatre shows to engage  in a dialogue on gender violence and child abuse. Thousands were reached through film, comic books and interactive radio programs.

You need more convincing that our approaches work? Take a look at our recent publication: As we Speak…Community Conversations as Evidence of Social Change in Pangani, UZIKWASA 2017

• As_we_speak...research_summary.pdf (PDF)