Gender Equality Tanzania, United Republic of Project #16843

Protect Girls from FGM in Tanzania

by Tanzania Development Trust

Project Report | Oct 21, 2020
250 more girls at risk in imminent cutting season

By Rhobi Samwelly | Project Leader

Literacy class in Mugumu Safe House

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

Digital Champion Training

Tailoring student

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Jun 24, 2020
Protecting girls from FGM during COVID

By Rhobi Samwelly | Project Leader

Making Masks

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.

Film Award

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Feb 28, 2020
Presenting our work on Feb 6th zero tolerance day

By Janet CHAPMAN | Project Leader

We were delighted to be invited to present our work at the Zero Tolerance event organised by UNFPA in Dar es Salaam on February 6^th. Rhobi was part of the panel and talked about our work. She was accompanied to Dar by Christina, a former cutter who Rhobi persuaded to destroy her tools and stop this practice.

Christina had never been to Dar before, and had never travelled by plane, so it was a very exciting experience for her. When she saw the air stewardesses in their smart uniforms she asked Rhobi whether any of them were Kuria like them. When Rhobi answered no, Christina started to cry. “We have so much still to learn” she said.

Listen to Rhobi and Christina's story from Mugumu here: https://youtu.be/IF5A8oVCCBI

Persuading cutters, or Ngaribas, to stop the practice is an important part of the fight against FGM.

Ngaribas are appointed by the village leaders. Families pay them approximately $15 to cut one girl, $5 dollars of this is given to the village leaders. These are large amounts of money to subsistence farmers in the villages of Mara.

One reason girls are cut is because cut girls fetch between 10 and 12 cows when they are married, but uncut girls fetch only 4 to 6 cows for their family. As each cow is worth around $100 this is significant for families living in extreme poverty.

Hope’s outreach work on the effects of FGM and through roadshows, traditional dance festivals, village community forums, and film screenings is beginning to pay off. We have managed to change many people’s attitudes and stop the tradition of Female Genital Mutilation in many families in the villages.

Particularly importantly we have managed to persuade 6 cutters to ceremonially destroy their tools and stop cutting girls. These cutters are now helping girls not to be cut in their communities by helping them reach the safe house and providing anti-FGM education to the community.

This is a brave step for these women, and not always supported by their family or husband, who miss the income and status their role brought. Hope has worked with them, educating them on how to start alternative small businesses selling cereals in the market, and provided them with capital of £220 to do this.

Christina was previously a Ngariba in the village of Kebanchabancha. She attended one of the anti-FGM road shows and as a result she decided to stop cutting and publicly destroyed her tools. Although this resulted in Christina losing her source of income, divorce from her husband, and having to move away from her village, she says she has no regrets about this important decision. Christina now supports the Hope team’s work of re-education of those involved in cutting.

We know of 40 cutters who are still operating, who we still need to persuade to drop their tools. But we salute the following women who have seen the light and stopped cutting.

We have also been busy updating our website. We hope you like it!

Please check it out here

https://hopeforgirlsandwomen.wordpress.com/

And thank you again for your generosity to help protect girls from FGM in Tanzania..

Rhobi Samwelly

Project Leader

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