The Humanity Campaign » Tanzania http://www.humanitycampaign.org Investing in social entrepreneurs working to reduce poverty and hunger in the U.S. and abroad Sun, 17 Jan 2010 00:00:01 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8 en hourly 1 Investigating Gender Inequality in Tanzania http://www.humanitycampaign.org/blog/investigating-gender-inequality-in-tanzania/ http://www.humanitycampaign.org/blog/investigating-gender-inequality-in-tanzania/#comments Fri, 24 Jul 2009 04:49:40 +0000 admin http://www.humanitycampaign.org/?p=85 A Post by Guest Writer Jess Shorland
WOMEDA

WOMEDA in Karagwe, Tanzania

I have just returned from visiting Tanzania. I was there from July 5th through July 12th. On this, my second trip to Karagwe, Tanzania, I had only one week to learn as much as I possibly could about local conflict - the reasons behind it, who was often involved, and possible solutions. Thanks mostly to Juma Masisi, Director of WOMEDA (the Women's Emancipation and Development Agency), I managed to talk with over thirty women, all of whom shared their amazing stories with me. The women’s experiences all demonstrated the seemingly archaic gender gap that remains not only in the town of Karagwe, but in many villages across the globe. So I began my work to speak with these women connected to WOMEDA in this small rural village in Tanzania. In front of a clay brick house, kneeling on mats woven by the calloused hands of the women sitting opposite me, I began with my own story of how my rights had been violated when I was 17 years old. I had hopes that being open and candid with the women would bridge some of the cultural gaps and language barriers that I thought could prevent the comfort that fosters honesty. With repetitive "Poles" (which means sorry in Swahili) as Juma translated, the women grew more serious. After I explained my experiences and how they influenced my interest in gender inequality, I asked them if they would share their stories with me. One by one, the women elaborated on their struggles. The Women’s Stories Zainabu, 28, has a family of eight children, three wives and one husband. When she married her husband, she had no idea that he would eventually take two other wives, and that one of those wives would live with them in the house that she built. "I thought he would at least ask me, or even tell me, but it was very abrupt," she said. She explained expressionlessly that she still loves him, but would have never married him had she known that this was his intention. She finds it painful and difficult to share her husband and no longer wishes to have sex with him. But if she refuses, she faces a high risk of being beaten or kicked out of her house. And she fears leaving him because her husband will keep her children, who are a source of labor and potential income (especially female children because of the dowry system still in place). Looking down at her clasped hands, she said that she could never bear to leave her children. What she did not know is that under Tanzanian law, children younger than seven are usually left in the mother's custody, and children older than seven are given the right to make the decision themselves. Because of the lack of information and awareness of these laws, Zainabu thought that she had no other options. For her, it was either deal with it ...

]]> http://www.humanitycampaign.org/blog/investigating-gender-inequality-in-tanzania/feed/ 0 What We’ll Be Doing in Kenya & Uganda http://www.humanitycampaign.org/blog/what-well-be-doing-in-kenya-uganda/ http://www.humanitycampaign.org/blog/what-well-be-doing-in-kenya-uganda/#comments Mon, 08 Jun 2009 00:57:00 +0000 admin tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4361337679034019638.post-1411490497988066997 From June 25th through July 5th I'll be in Kenya and Uganda with Jess Shorland and Bob Phoenix. The purpose of our trip is to:
  1. Visit the non-profits that The Humanity Campaign and iContact have provided funds to in order to see and document how they are using the funds and to learn about their operations and needs;
  2. Find additional qualified non-profits for The Humanity Campaign to invest in;
  3. Find companies with unique innovative technologies that address local social needs and for-profit companies with a social mission to invest in;
  4. Learn as much as we can about conflict resolution, IDP camps, food and water distribution, rural health care provision, and rural primary and secondary education; and
  5. Dance, dance, and dance some more like Matt from Where The Hell is Matt!
On our first day in Nairobi we'll be meeting with Amon Anderson from the Acumen Fund and Mary Muhara from Africa Rising. Amon is a friend of mine from back when we went to UNC together and from when he was in charge of the entrepreneurship minor at UNC. Mary is the in-country local representative for Africa Rising who vets the non-profits that Africa Rising contributes to. Mary will be taking us to visit TULIP Nairobi a program supported by AR. TULIP "strives to deliver hope for girls subjected to poverty and its vices: teenage pregnancies, HIV/AIDS, drugs, crime, and prostitution." On day two in Nairobi we'll be visiting with Carolina for Kibera. CFK works in Kibera, a slum in North Nairobi to "promote youth leadership and ethnic and gender cooperation in Kibera through sports, young women's empowerment, and community development." CFK was started in 2001 by a UNC students Kim Chapman and Rye Barcott. Rye has since completed five years of service as an officer in the Marines and completed a MBA/MPA joint degree from HBS and the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, which is what I'd love to be doing in a few years. They operate a soccer league, medical clinic (Tabitha Clinic), and a reproductive health and women's rights center (Binti Pamoja). I'm so excited to be seeing their operation first hand. On day three, we'll be flying from Nairobi's Jomo Kenyatta Airport to Entebbe, Uganda. We'll stay the night in Kampala with our friend Louis Ntale, the brother-in-law of Duke's Christopher Kigongo, and then wake up early to catch the five or six hour Posta Uganda bus from Kampala to Gulu and traverse once again the adventurous roads of rural Uganda. Upon arriving in Gulu we'll be meeting up with Andrew Morgan of Invisible Children. Over the past ...

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