Protect Girls from FGM in Tanzania

Thanks to your support, and that of their sponsors, we are delighted to report that 9 girls from the safe house have now gone on to further studies to follow their dreams.

Rehema has joined her Pharmacy collage at Tandabui in Mwanza region, and is progressing well. Josephina, Sarah and Joyce have joined their tour guide course at Tumaini College in Arusha region and 5 girls are studying hospitality in Moshi and Zanzibar. Amina will soon start university to further her dream to be a lawyer. We will be posting further updates on their progress here soon.

But many girls are still in need of support to further their education, so if you are in a position to help it would be very much appreciated. There is more information here.

Thanks to you we are continuing to support 175 girls in our safe houses. They are all in education or vocational training. You can see my updates on all our activities here.

We have continued to do our outreach activities to educate our communities against FGM and Child Marriage. This is particularly important as we expect a cutting season in December. Our Digital Champions are a vital part of our community protection networks and so we are delighted that we have been able to expand them to Butiama and Tarime Districts. We have also been able to reach many people by participating in the Serengeti Cultural Festival and African Child Day celebration.

Poverty is one of the drivers of child marriage and FGM, and so we have been training villagers in better agriculture and how to detect pests in their main crops of cassava and maize, using a phone app called Plant Nuru.

Thank you for your support to help our girls realise their dreams.

This year, we have been continuing to rescue girls from gender-based violence with the help of local officials and Social Welfare officers. We expect to receive more cases during the next few months, but currently 61 girls reside at our Mugumu Safe House, and 56 girls reside at our Butiama Safe House. Your donations support our strained resources that ensure that these girls can be protected until they are reconciled with their families. Resources include food, shelter, medication, and health services.

Your donations not only protect girls, but also empower them for years to come. We are continuing to encourage girls to receive an education, especially when reconciliation fails. 37 girls are studying Tailoring and Entrepreneurship, with 9 girls having graduated through our Alternative Rites of Passage ceremonies. 3 girls are studying Hotel Management and Hospitality. 31 girls are receiving primary education, 35 girls are continuing their secondary education, and 1 girl is in high school. We are also continuing our sponsorship program to cover fees for their education.  

In addition, we have collaborated with Nomad and Elle Peut Naidim to educate girls on sexual reproductive health at our safe houses. Sanitary towels were also distributed after the session.

We are also delighted to share that we have launched our first Fit Persons Training with 57 people from Butiama, Serengeti, and Tarime. In collaboration with Social Welfare, we have taught these volunteers how to protect girls at risk of gender-based violence. This is a UNICEF-recommended program that encourages families to care for and support children escaping harmful situations.

We are so appreciative of your support as we continue to condemn female genital mutilation and navigate the longer-term impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Thank you! 

Rhobi Samwelly
Hope for Girls and Women

The current cutting season is in full swing and we have been out in the villages rescuing many desperate girls refusing to be cut. We and now have 82 girls in Mugumu and 100 girls in our Butiama safe house, and are still expecting many more. Girls are already sleeping 3 or 4 to a mattress on the floor, and feeding them all is extremely challenging.

Your donations are vital in providing them with food and basic supplies like soap until it is safe for them to be returned to their families. This process will begin when the cutting season ends in early January.

Longer term, we are continuing to support the education of girls when reconciliation fails. By increasing employment prospects, we empower girls to be decision makers in their communities and champions against gender-based violence. There are currently 44 girls in primary school, 29 girls in secondary school, 7 girls in VETA, 1 girl in high school, 10 girls to join secondary school, and 1 girl wishing to join college when we can raise the fees.

We have also been working in collaboration with Nomad Tanzania to sponsor girls for hotel management and hospitality, and every year our girls are offered to tour Sergentei National Park. We're thrilled that two of our girls have graduated from these courses.

As we continue to educate our girls, we also continue to educate our local communities. This month, we held debates with 60 community members of Bonchugu and Nyamburi Villages around the impacts of gender-based violence. We presented questions about the attitudes around FGM and challenges that girls face. And from these conversations, we were able to identify areas of growth, including a stronger sense of accountability and behaviorial change intervention.

Our work has been extremely challenging this year, but we have continued to make progress.

We're so thankful for your support in ending FGM in Tanzania, and wish you warm seasons greetings and best wishes for 2021.. 

Thank you!

Rhobi Samwelly
Hope for Girls and Women

Links:

• Our work mentioned in UNFPA report

There are now 68 girls in Mugumu Safe House, and 58 in Butiama.  Rhobi and her team have, as usual,  been working hard in the villages doing advocacy, training the digital champions, visiting the anti FGM clubs in the schools and checking that girls are safe. 

They were expecting a cutting season to have started in September, after the standard seven classes were sent home from primary school until starting secondary school in January, but with everyone having one eye on the upcoming election on October 28th this is now expected to start after that. But they have identified 250 girls who are at risk of being subjected to FGM in the next two months, which is a huge concern.

If all of these girls come to the safe houses it will put a huge pressure on resources, and lead to great overcrowding. But Rhobi and her team never turn girls away, and they will cope somehow.

Hope relies on food donations from local hotels and safari lodges to feed the girls. With tourists few and far between because of the pandemic, these are greatly reduced, as is the income they usually receive from selling the handicrafts they make to visitors.

All of the girls in the Safe Houses continue their education: in local schools if they are able to, if not in the vocational programme, where they learn tailoring, batik, basket weaving. and other skills.  This includes basic literacy and numeracy. Last month girls started making trousers  for local customers.

Hope  has also been working with .The Plaster House, a health NGO,, to identify children in the village who have cleft lips and club feet and arrange to transport them to Arusha for treatment. Ten such children were successfully treated from Mara in September. 

2020 has been an extremely difficult year for everyone, and we see huge challenges ahead, so we are particularly grateful for your support,

With gratitude, 

Rhobi

COVID

The COVID pandemic has increased the danger of FGM here. Schools were unexpectedly closed in March because of COVID. The cutting season started in early April.

We managed to rescue a total of 55 girls, 6 girls found had been cut already,  There are 118 FGM cases confirmed in the villages.

There was a confirmed COVID case very near to Mugumu Safe House. We have worked very hard to keep the girls in our care safe, by restricting the number of staff and others coming in as much as possible.  

We have postponed all outreach work for now, and transformed the vocational classroom into a quarantine area for the new girls rescued from the villages to stay.  We have introduced more hand washing, but social distancing is a huge problem when overcrowding means girls are sleeping 3 to a bed.

Schools will reopen next week, and so we hope that we will be able to restart the reconcilation process with gir's' families and some of them will be able to return home.

As there have been no tourists in Serengeti we have been unable to sell the bags and other goods we make to raise income, which has been a challenge, but we have been making face masks instead. 

We have participated in two webinars about how COVID is impacting the fight against FGM. You can watch the recording of the webinar here.and see Rhobi’s presentation here.

Hope selected as FAWCO Health Target Project

We were delighted to be selected as the Health Target Project by FAWCO in March. Founded in 1931, FAWCO is an international network of independent volunteer clubs and associations comprising 60 member clubs in 30 countries worldwide.  They are fundraising to support Hope for the next 3 years.  More detail here and to follow. 

Another award for Giselle's Film

Defying the Cutting Season, the shortened version of In the Name of Your Daughter, the award winning film featuring Rhobi's work, was awarded the Best Featured Documentary at the recent OneWorld Media awards.  Congratulations to everyone involved. 

Visualisations of our work

We were selected to be featured as Viz5 MakeoverMonday, where data analysts visualise data related to gender equality.  You can see some of the amazing results and learn more here. 

Research project with Nottingham University

We have been selected to participate in a research project on factors influencing FGM by Nottingham University starting this month.  This will involve our Digital Champions surveying attitudes and other factors in the villages where they live. 

The last few months have been extremely challenging for everyone in the world, and we sincerely hope you and your loved ones are safe and well, and thank you from the bottom of our hearts for your support, particularly during these difficult times.