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Women's Rights Advocacy Workshop in Tanzania

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YES alumni in Arusha, Tanzania participated in a five day workshop aiming to raise awareness for women’s rights in the Maasai society. The event was hosted at the Ketumbeine Secondary School where over 100 students and community members were in attendance. During the workshop, the participants were taught about cultural norms and how some of them can be used to limit women’s access to education and infringe on their rights. The participants also heald small group discussions on what they learned in the workshops, debated various related to women’s rights and discussed how what they learned from the workshop will impact their future lives.

“Culture and norms in relation to a young woman's development and safety.” was one of the topics taught by Ndeenga Shamata (YES 2010-2011, hosted by IRIS in Fort Madison, IA) and guest speaker Bariki Ole-Singo. The goal of this subject was to help participants understand their culture by being able to recognize oppressive norms or acts that are done to children and women in the name of culture. They were also taught how to deal with these cultural views or where to seek for help. Trainers taught the participants how to differentiate healthy cultural practices from oppressive ones such as female genital mutilation and domestic abuse.

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Another topic discussed with attendees was over “Human Rights” and the subject was taught by guest speaker Frida Eligius from Arusha’s Legal and Human Rights Centre (LHRC). This focused on bringing about awareness on human rights in general, women and children's rights, especially young women. Helping all women understand their basic rights was eye opening to many. It was also important to share with the participants that there are places young women can turn to for help if they were faced with violations of these rights. One of the participants commented after the session that she wasn’t aware that education and saying no to early marriages were her rights and she would pass this knowledge onto others.

“Careers” was the last major topic taught at the workshop by Doreen Malavanu (YES 2013-2014, Tanzania, hosted by YFU in Greenbelt, MD) and Adolfina Nkuba (YES 2012-2013, Tanzania, hosted by PAX in Hillsboro, KS). This session aimed to empower participants to believe in themselves and know that with hard work they can achieve their goals and dreams. This helped the participants realize their importance within and outside of their communities. It was also important to remind participants to be focused on their studies and to motivate them to improve their performance in school and life in general. One student in secondary school after the workshop said that they would study hard to become a lawyer and that they will stand firm for women and children’s rights in their future career.

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On the last day, the students at the workshop presented to the community about what they learned from the workshop. Overall, the workshop was successful in its primary goal of training the participants to better understand women and children’s rights. The alumni leading the project believe there is a lot of hope for this project to reach further audiences. With the help of LHRC, YES alumni are looking forward to establishing the first ever “Human Rights Clubs” in several schools, both primary and secondary. Through this, they hope many students will be taught these subjects and their surrounding communities would be taught as well. Shamata would also like to have bigger workshops discussing women and children’s rights in the future.

Shamata is a strong believer that education on women and children’s rights will happen in the future and this can be done by continuing to advocate for women and children.

“This is just the beginning of our women and children's rights advocacy. Change does not occur at once as one may plan or wish for, but it is with persistence that those efforts may bear better fruits. And that fight is better than turning a blind eye on  violence against women and girl children."

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