Kisa Project Manager, Hadija Hassan, records the Tanzania-based GLAMI’s first radio program, about Personal Leadership, at the studio. Courtesy: AfricAid/GLAMI

By Jessica Love
DENVER, Colorado, Feb 12 2021 (IPS)

Last fall, a 45-year-old father of four named Moses turned on the radio at his home in Arusha, Tanzania. Searching for his favorite station, he heard the introduction to a program about girls that he would later describe as ‘ear-catching.’ He wanted to know what would come next.

He had stumbled upon “Safari ya Binti” (A Girl’s Journey), a pilot radio program created by GLAMI (Girls Livelihood and Mentorship Initiative), a Tanzanian NGO that runs extracurricular mentoring programs for secondary school girls.

In a culture that too often reinforces the narrative that girls are weak, less important than boys, and that being confident and determined is rude, GLAMI is working to upend this narrative. Matching girls with university-educated Tanzanian female mentors, GLAMI shows their scholars they have the power to write their own futures – and then they teach the skills needed to do just that.

As a result, girls enrolled in these mentoring programs are more likely to graduate secondary school, attend university, and create positive change in their communities.

Safari ya Binti provided a way for mentors and scholars to connect when in-person sessions had been scaled back due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Airing weekly on Saturdays for four months, GLAMI mentors presented lessons that aligned with themes in their core curriculum, such as personal leadership, resilience, study skills, and community leadership.

The father of one son and three daughters, the radio programming was of deep interest to Moses. “The fact that a lot of girls drop out of school because of pregnancy, which is disappointing to us as parents, got me thinking that girls are weak and dependent, and that there is nothing they can do better than taking care of a family.”

Listening to Safari ya Binti, Moses heard inspiring female presenters and he heard girls asking smart questions. This was a program his entire family should hear, he decided, and so they all began to gather weekly to listen together.

Courtesy: AfricAid/GLAMI

“I came to realize that girls are capable of doing what boys can do, there is no limit to what they can do. I noticed this by listening to the girl’s testimonies on the sessions,” he said.

He wasn’t the only one to experience this shift in attitude. GLAMI found that a number of other focus group respondents also experienced significant changes in the way they viewed their daughters, and in the way girls viewed themselves.

“I had doubts that women can be leaders but right now I am beginning to believe that girls are born leaders. I even begin to see that my wife is capable of making huge decisions for the family’s well-being,” shared Balongo, the father of a GLAMI scholar, who listened to the radio show.

Nengarivo, who is enrolled in GLAMI’s mentoring program, shared: “There were times after the school opened when I thought that the world was coming to an end. Coronavirus was a threat, and I had a lot of dreams that I wanted to achieve, but an outbreak of Corona made me lose a lot of hopes given the fact that [GLAMI] mentors were visiting us only twice a month, unlike the usual timetable.

But when Safari ya Binti came I was really motivated to start afresh and have my hopes again. …I consider myself a change maker and I believe that I am a leader, I am not afraid of taking any action to save my community.”

This year, United Nations’ World Radio Day celebrates evolution, innovation, and connection at a time when radio has presented perhaps one of the most important lifelines in recent memory. But for so many organizations, radio presented opportunity.

Radio inspired creative approaches like Safari ya Binti. Radio enabled organizations to stay connected to the communities they serve from a safe distance. And radio allowed the chance to reach wider audiences with messages that inspired, informed, and changed attitudes.

The only downside of radio? Lillian, the mother of one girl enrolled in GLAMI programming put it best:
“I just wish that everything that was discussed could be repeated so as the new listeners could learn everything.”

The link to a promotional video created for the program: https://youtu.be/z8yAyh3qlY0

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Kisa Scholars receive their own planners at the conclusion of their “Creating a Timetable” lesson. Credit: AfricAid

By Jessica Love
DENVER, Colorado, Jul 13 2020 (IPS)

It’s no secret that under pandemic lockdown for so many months, young people around the world have coped in tremendous ways. They have found new outlets for learning and creative channels for developing and using their skills.

Young people like Mary, who kept her school subjects fresh through a group study via WhatsApp; Florence, who filled her time with an online professional development course to help improve her resume and elevator pitch; and Gift, a young girl who taught herself to make ice cream via YouTube and now aspires to open her own business someday.

Young people are adaptable, resilient.

But those are learned skills, and not every young person has an opportunity to learn them. In Tanzania, it is common for girls to grow up being told that they are weak, unimportant, and destined to remain in the domestic sphere as mothers and wives.

Only 39 percent of girls in Tanzania are lucky enough to attend school. Those who do face significant financial, cultural, and environmental challenges that can undermine their ability to make the most of their secondary school opportunity, resulting too often in dropout.

If you grow up thinking you are weak and unimportant, those thoughts stay with you. We believe what we are told. Which is why “soft” skills, such as resilience, inner strength, confidence, internal motivation, and leadership are so essential – especially for a young woman. If a girl is taught to understand her worth, her potential, and given the skills and tools to pursue her dreams, she is unstoppable.

Soft skills are often not taught in the classroom, but they do need to be taught. In Tanzania, AfricAid supports a locally-led mentorship program for secondary school girls run by GLAMI (Girls Livelihood and Mentorship Initiative).

By pairing girls with university-educated Tanzanian women who once faced the same challenges as the girls they mentor, GLAMI bridges the gap between academics and a girl’s ability to live the future she chooses for herself. In her mentor, a girl sees her own possibility.

GLAMI Mentor Chonge takes a selfie with a group of Binti Shupavu Scholars after class one day. Credit: AfricAid

GLAMI’s four-year program for girls in lower secondary school is called Binti Shupavu, which translates to “courageous daughter” in Swahili. The program teaches study skills, personal leadership, health, and self-confidence with the goal of increasing graduation rates among vulnerable girls – which it does, by a remarkable 98 percent, compared to 69 percent national

For older students, the Kisa Project, which means “story” in Sawhili, is a leadership course that prepares young women in their last two years of secondary school to attend university and create positive social change in her community.

Only 3 percent of Tanzanian girls go on to tertiary education, but 97 percent of Kisa scholars do. Alumnae from both programs are more likely to complete school and advance their education, and less likely to become pregnant or be married at an early age. Graduates go on to start their own businesses and hold leadership positions in their communities.

Both programs build resilience, which has been shown to be a key factor in helping girls overcome challenges, leading to better emotional wellbeing and better outcomes later in life.

Resilience is what allows these scholars to bounce back from the myriad challenges they face – especially in times of COVID-19 – and to learn from these obstacles and become better prepared for future challenges.

Hard skills are important, too. Which is why GLAMI also provides girls with programming that helps them learn financial literacy, study skills, and time-management. Girls need resilience, confidence, and self-belief in addition to these practical skills if they are to succeed and become changemakers in their communities.

As UNESCO-UNEVOC leads the world in celebrating World Youth Skills Day on July 15, and highlighting the importance of equipping young people with skills for employment, decent work, and entrepreneurship, let’s also highlight the need to give all of young people – especially girls – all of the skills they need to truly succeed.

Every girl has the potential to be a leader and every girl deserves to feel confident within and outside of the classroom. But first, she needs the right skills. And a mentor to show the way.

*Africaid works in close partnership with sister organization, GLAMI (Girls Livelihood and Mentorship Initiative), AfricAid also supports mentorship opportunities that help secondary school girls in Tanzania complete their education, develop into confident leaders, and transform their own lives and their communities

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