EDUCATING GIRLS IN TANZANIA
FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF THE PARENTS
Laigwanani Olomo is from Kirtalo village within Soitsambu ward of Ngorongoro district. He spoke to our partner the Pastoral Women’s Council (PWC) about the impact of our girl’s education programme on him and his community.
“The girl’s education project has brought a lot of changes to us and the community in different ways. Before we received training from PWC, we were attached to bad cultural practices like inflicting Female Genital Mutilation on our girls. We gave very poor parental guidance and care to our adolescent girls as we all assumed that they had already become adults after this initiation process. Usually our daughters do not have specific places to sleep at night so they freely mix with young men (morans) exposing them to the dangers of early pregnancy.
But after the trainings our attitudes towards girl’s education has changed. More parents have started to build houses which contain rooms for their daughters to sleep during the night; this is a more conducive and safe environment for them, that will keep them away from problems that are related to bad cultural practices such as over night dancing (ESOTO). Because of this early pregnancies and marriages for girls who are still in school have been reduced. Also the enrolment and performance of our girls has increased this year as we found out during the annual stakeholders’ workshop this year. PWC continues to create our awareness towards girl’s rights to an education which will bring development of our community and our nation in general.”
HAVE A LOOK INSIDE KILOLO SCHOOL'S DORMITORY AND LISTEN TO LUCY TALK ABOUT HER EXPERIENCES