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BTS welcome the Vice-President of the United Republic of Tanzania
BTS welcomed Mh Samia Suluhu Hassan, the
Vice-President of Tanzania, to a reception on 17th
April, the day before she represented Tanzania at the
Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, the last at which
the Queen will preside.
Mh Samia Suluhu Hassan is an experienced politician from
Zanzibar where she served as Minister for Labour, Gender
Development and Children for 5 years, then Tourism, Trade and
Investment. Then she became Minister of State for Union Affairs in
the national cabinet, up to 2015. President Magufuli chose her as his
running mate for the 2015 election.
Her biggest interest is in the place of women in Tanzania. She has
pioneered as the first female Vice President, and argued for stronger
rights for women in the Tanzanian constitution. Tanzania is slowly
appointing more women to top jobs – it is a good record!
It was a happy event – a return to England for the Vice-
President, who studied development economics at Manchester
University from 1992-4. About two thirds of those present
were Tanzanians – another first for BTS.
We would like to thank Baroness Valerie Amos, the Director of the School
of Oriental and African Studies who allowed us use of the Brunei Suite
and so made the reception possible, and Dr Asha-Rose Migiro, the
Tanzanian High Commissioner and her colleagues. Members of the BTS
committee also worked hard to make it a success, especially our new
Executive Secretary, Tessa Most, and our Vice-Chair, Petronilla Mlowe who rounded off the formal proceedings
with a very warm vote of thanks.
BTS NEWSLETTER
www.britaintanzaniasociety.co.uk www.tanzdevtrust.org
May 2018
Volume 16 Issue No 2
Photos from top: 1. Dr Andrew Coulson, Chair of BTS, addressing the gathering. Seated at the table to his right are Mh Samia
Suluhu Hassan, Vice-President of Tanzania and H.E. Dr.Asha-Rose Migiro, Tanzanian High Commissioner
2. Petronilla Mlowe BTS Vice-Chair, speaking with Mh Samia Suluhu Hassan, Vice-President of Tanzania
3. Dr Hassan Mohamed Hamza (TUHEDA), Baroness Valerie Amos, Director of SOAS, Petronilla Mlowe
4. Petronilla Mlowe, BTS Vice-Chair, bringing proceedings to a close.
Who Will Protect A Girl From Exploitation When Her Mother Is No More?
The young girl bangs loudly and repeatedly on my door as the sun is dropping behind the horizon. She is crying and trembling. I hug her close and ask her what has happened, but she is unable to speak.
My son makes some tea and I sit her down.
Slowly, slowly she reveals that her stepfather has ejected her from her home that afternoon. He screamed that he wanted nothing to do with her. He picked up his stick and chased her down the road yelling that now her mother
was gone he had no responsibility to care for a child who was not even his.
As she settles and as we speak more calmly, I realize that her stepfather wants to steal the child’s inheritance and home. This man manipulates the fact that the child has no one to stand up for her rights. This child has lost so
much. She has lost the love of her mother, her home and her opportunity for education. With no mother who will
defend her from a man who threatens and swears?
Standing up for this child will cost me. It will put me in the line of fire from this man’s anger. It will cost me
money. My own children’s education may be compromised, as I have to spread our family budget even thinner. But costs mean nothing to me. God has put me on this earth to do this. If I don’t help this child, she will lose her
home, her education and her future, as well as her mother. I am responsible for alleviating this child’s pain by
doing something about this terrible man. Her dead mother would have done the same for my child.
My inner confidence - my “Ujasiri” helps me to act.
I talk to my husband and we make a plan. He will pay for our children’s education and I will take on that of this
poor child. I will enrol her in school so that she has the chance to transcend her circumstances. I coach the child and support her to confront her stepfather. She has to go through the immediate pain of dealing
with the stepfather so that she can retain the home that her mother built. I know that the man will be affronted by
the child’s confidence in claiming her rights, but I know that this will help the child to stand up for herself
throughout life. She returns to the home and after a verbal confrontation the stepfather eventually gives her the title deed, and flees the village. I enrol her in school. We rent out the house to pay for her school fees.
Life is hard, but this child knows that she is not alone.
It’s not easy, but it’s the right thing to do. If I don’t advocate for this child who will?
PAST SEMINARS AND EVENTS:
Children’s Rights in Tanzania: Doing the Right Thing This was the topic for our seminar at SOAS, London on 29 January, where the main speaker was Kate
McAlpine. Kate arrived in Tanzania 26 years ago, and was at once struck by the plight of street
children. Subsequently she set up an organisation Mkombozi to help children in Kilimanjaro Region,
and later the NGO Community for Children’s Rights, CCR. 50% of Tanzanians are children, under the age of 18. Three quarters of them have experienced physical or mental violence. 16 per cent experience physical violence. Many women and children are not safe in their homes or schools. They are not safe with their partners, their parents or their teachers. They are trapped. One shock will push them into a life of destitution, so they live with high levels of stress. Children are revered when they are young and needy, much less so when they are adolescents. They are powerless, neglected, isolated and discriminated against. Some are called orphans, but not all these have lost both parents. How do we help them? Kate described a series of steps, and roles. A passer-by sees a child at risk – shall I intervene? Why me? What are the consequences? Maybe better to soothe the situation, to take the heat out of the violence. Or to try and understand it better. What is in the best interests of this child? What resources are available? In what ways can I really help? The government is committed to helping children, and there is a national plan of action to end violence. But the resources and capacities within the social welfare service is overwhelmed by the extent of the problems. Many choose not to talk about it. Kate described putting two actors on a long distance bus, and asking them to talk about child violence until others overheard and joined in. The first step is to accept that there is a problem, and to talk about it. From that the best solutions may emerge – and only in a few cases will they involve care in institutions. CCR’s approach is to research people’s experiences of violence, to find solutions that work, to build a community of people who can protect children, to empower young people to help themselves, and to work with the Government agencies to get more resources and more understanding.
Here is a story made up from two real experiences which illustrates how it may work out
Kate’s websites are http://www.doingtherightthing.co and http://www.ccr-tz.org Twitter@katemcalpine.
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Railway Children: Report by Sheila Farrell On 26 March we listened to a presentation at SOAS by Pete
Kent about the work of the Railway Children, ably assisted
on a very clear Internet link from Mwanza by Abdullah Issa, who brought us up to date on the progress of the Kivuko
project for homeless children that is now being rolled out to
five more Tanzanian cities.
Railway Children (https://www.railwaychildren.org.uk/) is a
charity that was founded in 1995 to help children who run
away from home, intervening quickly – often at bus and
railway stations – in an attempt to minimise their exposure
to danger. It operates in three parts of the world – East
Africa, India and the UK - with an annual budget of around
£3m.
In Tanzania there are at least 10,000 children living on the
streets in the six largest cities alone. All of them experience
abuse of one form or another - baseline surveys undertaken
annually in Mwanza suggest that 60 per cent suffer sexual
abuse or physical abuse
sufficiently violent to cause
injuries. And the situation
may not be much better at
home: although Tanzania is generally regarded as a
peaceful country, it has a high
but often well-concealed level
of domestic abuse which is
the main reason the children
run away in the first place.
Runaway children frequently get into trouble with the law,
but it was reported in a study done of a pilot programme in
Mbeya that only seven per cent of them are legally
represented in court. Policemen are not well-trained to deal with them, and child protection legislation, which is good in
theory in Tanzania, is often not enforced due to lack of
resources, with investigations often hampered by a lack of
evidence.
Railway Children’s strategy for dealing with the problem
focuses on:
*Reducing the levels of violence children experience by
finding them early and establishing a relationship of trust
with one or more adults who can provide temporary support
*Encouraging communities in the areas where street
children hang out to take a more benevolent attitude towards
them
*Safely reintegrating them back into their homes or
communities wherever possible
*Developing a set of standard operating procedures for central and local government based on the UN’s General
Comment on Children Living in Street Situations that
provide practical guidance on what to do about street
children when they are encountered on a day-to-day basis.
The pilot scheme for implementing this strategy in Tanzania
has been in Mwanza, where Railway Children has supported
projects since 2008 and also now runs its own project,
known as Kivuko, which began in 2014. The work in
Mwanza is largely DFID-funded (80 per cent) with contributions also from individual UK donors and a number
of smaller foundations.
The scheme has three main components: street outreach
work, reunification of the children with their families, and
the creation of Youth Associations, which are peer group
support mechanisms for improving behaviour and helping
older children and young adults develop skills and find
work.
Street outreach work involves not only finding children and
working to gain their confidence, but also providing them
with improved hygiene (soap, shoes and other materials),
medical care and education. The Kivuko project includes a
mobile school, as well as a highly-valued education centre
that also provides attendees with meals.
The family reunification programme involves different
approaches and levels of effort depending on how far away
the family is located. The social workers involved have
gained experience in this area, and now take more time over
it, resulting in 80 per cent of all children being successfully
returned to their families. There remains, however, the need
for better regulations relating to fostering so that children that we can’t take home do not have to be sent to long-term
care homes. Fostering is only allowed in Tanzania as the
prelude to adoption, although informal fostering is
widespread. NGOs are not allowed to place homeless
children in families to which they are not related as a short-
term solution to their care needs. This may only become
possible once the Fit Persons Regulation now under
development passes into law.
The Youth Association programme brings together youths
aged 15-23 into like-minded self-help groups that encourage
individual members to become independent and self-
supporting. Once they have been through a defined process,
each group is allowed to register as a Youth Association,
which entitles its members to small grants to fund vocational
training, the setting up of small businesses, and 3-6 months of housing expenses. The programme has been very
successful, so Mwanza now has 291 Youth Associations in
almost 25 groups.
Railway Children usually works in association with local
implementation agencies for service delivery, but in
Mwanza it has 25 staff of its own, working in association
with two other charities (CST and Upendo Daimo) to
provide safe shelters for the children while longer-term
solutions to their problems are found.
The use of professional staff at Mwanza has allowed
Railway Children to develop training materials for street,
family, and youth work , which under the USAID-funded
‘Kizazi Kipya’ project are now being used in five other
Tanzanian cities: Iringa, Dodoma, Arusha, Mbeya and Dar es Salaam.
From April 2018 the scope of work will be extended by a
DFID-funded project in the same cities, where the emphasis
will be on training local community care champions to operate at bus terminals and other “hot spots” where
homeless children congregate. Railway Children will also
orchestrate public awareness campaigns and work with local
government agencies to improve the children’s access to
welfare services. The ultimate aim is to see the Tanzanian
Government accepting more fully its responsibilities
towards street children and increasing the budget for child
protection services.
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Benedicto from Kigoma participating on the Youth Development Policy Reform forum March 2018
Benedicto from Kigoma participating on the Youth Development Policy Reform forum March 2018
TDT Local Rep Benedicto Hosea, was chosen to represent Kigoma at the TANZANIA
YOUTH DEVELOPMENT POLICY/FRAMEWORK REFORM forum in Mwanza 7TH – 9TH MARCH 2018
The Tanzanian Government is implementing a Youth Development Policy Reform as it needs to address seven youth matters: (i) youth support, (ii) reproductive health, (iii) nationality,
personality and volunteerism, (iv) education training and technical skills, (v) arts and innovation, game and sports, information and communication technology, (vi)
youth participation in national development planning and decision making bodies and, (vii)
crosscutting matters such as gender, environmental and Sustainable Development Goals
(SDGs). To effect these objectives of policy reform, the government
produced a referendum that was circulated nation-wide through
youth forums and electronic surveys. The youth forum requested many initiatives, including the following:
Youth be recognized the top managers of the national resources to build big hearts among them for
effective utilization and management of national wealth voluntarily.
Ratification of the National Independent Youth Council that will have formally (government)
employed youth secretariat, accessible from National to Ward level dealing with youth matters.
Youth representatives to be on national bodies of decision making such as in parliament.
Establishment of Youth Centres (workshops) in every ward to provide technical skills, education and
training, supporting innovation, and to facilitate youth employment.
Establishment of Youth Funds/Bank that will be able to offer fair financing for youth innovations.
The removal of biased criteria for new employment that limits youth, especially fresh from
universities who have fewer experiences in particular jobs.
Some of the positive feedback from the Government was as follows: The government is already preparing regulations for the Independent Youth Council which will be
effective immediately after the strategy is in
place. The president will appoint the
secretaries for the youth council at national
level.
There will be a fund for the youth to facilitate
youth development and self employment.
UNFPA is as well interested to financing it as
substantiated by Youth Officer from it,
The policy and its regulations shall recognize
youth as all persons whose ages are between
15 to 35 years old as it was agreed by
Southern Africa Development Community (SADC)
countries.
Benedicto Hosea, April 2018
TDT Local Rep Benedicto Hosea, (back row 2nd from left) at the National Youth Forum, 2018
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TUHEDA visit to Kampala (Uganda) 22-23/03/18 Tanzania UK Healthcare Diaspora Association (TUHEDA) is an organisation of healthcare professionals and entrepreneurs who have a shared goal and vision of improving healthcare in communities both in Tanzania and UK (see BTS Newsletter September 2017). It was formed following the 2nd UK-East Africa Health Improvement and Investment Summit which was held in London in March 2017. It was apparent from that meeting that healthcare professionals and entrepreneurs of Tanzanian origin lacked organised representation, therefore the formation of TUHEDA a few months later was a step in the right direction. This year the UK-East Africa Healthcare Improvement and Investment Summit (its third), was held in Kampala, Uganda. Dr. Gideon Mlawa and Dr. Nasibu Mwande, both trustees, went as TUHEDA’s representatives. This is their report:
UK-East Africa Health Improvement and Investment Summit, Kampala (Uganda) 22-23rd March 2018 This was an important occasion for TUHEDA members to attend, providing opportunities to establish networks and to learn from other organisations with similar goals and vision. TUHEDA featured in two breakout sessions under different themes namely:
Advancing Diaspora Engagement in Tanzania’s healthcare
improvement, challenges and progress
Tanzania UK Healthcare Diaspora Association (TUHEDA)
formation - a move in the right direction
The TUHEDA presentation was well received with very positive feedback. We had a good opportunity to hear from other organisations as well, about the work they do to improve healthcare in Tanzania and East Africa as whole. A lot of topics and issues on health improvement and investment were discussed by different brilliant speakers from research projects to African Diaspora contributions to their countries of origin. Some of the key take home messages from this summit included:
Coordination, collaboration and co-development are key in order to
improve health in Africa
Engaging the main decision-makers is important in order to ensure
quicker implementation of any organisational objectives
Setting goals as immediate, short term and long term is vital to achieve a
greater and positive impact
To ensure there are people on the ground to work with and assist in
achieving the goals of an organisation like TUHEDA
Involving and engaging the local community (local knowledge is key) in
order to empower them in owning any projects
It is worthwhile to learn from and work with other
organisations such as the Britain-Tanzania Society
Building health communities in East Africa and Africa as a
whole is everyone’s business and we need to engage all
stakeholders to ensure success
Conclusion: In summary, the trip to Kampala by TUHEDA was fruitful and we are going to keep the momentum going. We are planning to have a TUHEDA launch in September 2018 where we expect to invite other organisations including the Britain-Tanzania Society (BTS) and the Tanzania High Commission in the UK. TUHEDA is on the move and in the news, please follow us on twitter , @TUHEDA_TZ and Facebook and like our page.
Dr Gideon Mlawa and Dr Nasibu Mwande
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In the Name of Your Daughter: Premiere Report
Copenhagen Film Festival, March 2018
Julian Marcus, Tanzania Development Trustee and former Chairman, attended the international première of ‘In The Name of Your Daughter’ at CPH:DOX, the Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival, in March. Here is his report on the outstanding reception for the film:
This film, made by the Canadian multi-award winning Human Rights journalist, Giselle Portenier (pictured with Rhobi) is about girls escaping FGM in Tanzania’s Mara Region and the work of Rhobi Samwelly and her colleagues in combatting FGM and running a Safe House to provide a sanctuary for the girls. This is the Safe
House funded by the Tanzania Development Trust through an International Appeal.
Several key members of Giselle’s team were with her in Copenhagen for the première including the Cinematographer, Samson Kapinga, the Editor, Cathy Gulkin and the composer Andrea Wettstein, with back-up and generous hospitality provided by Giselle’s husband, Chris Browne.
To the delight of all, Giselle had arranged for Rhobi Samwelly to be present, and thanks to the generosity of Plan International, Dr M Vasant and other donors, two of the girls who are prominent in the film, Rosie and Neema were there also. Plan International provided a chaperone for them.
Representing BTS/TDT were Willie and Gail Fulton and Ann and Julian Marcus. TDT was one of the film’s first sponsors.
The Film
In my view, the film is outstanding and very powerful. It shows the way that FGM in Mara is closely related to the local cow-based economy. We hear why husbands still want to marry girls who have been cut, claiming that this will reduce their tendency to unfaithfulness or promiscuity. We hear also from a tailor who fears the loss of business in new dresses for girls who survive FGM. We meet parents who accept their daughter’s decision against FGM, and also those who dishonestly pretend to do so, and those who reject their daughters and the pain this causes.
So, the film is not simplistic but very honest. It shows that changing hearts and minds is not easy in a rural community where cattle and agriculture provide almost the sole source of income, and where also educational standards are low. Girls who are cut marry young and rarely gain secondary education, so the campaign against FGM is also a campaign for the right of every girl to secondary education.
The film demonstrates the importance of support from the police and civil authorities and we see the excellent assistance Rhobi and her team get from the local police, and Giselle was able to film arrests being made.
‘In the Name of your Daughter’ could have been a bleak film. That it isn’t is because of the charisma of Rhobi Samwelly and because of the courage and witness of the girls and the mutual love and care they show. We see Rosie and Neema become confident public speakers and taking the anti-FGM message
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The BBC will be screening a shortened version of the film. As soon as we know the date, this will be put on the BTS and TDT websites and information circulated widely as soon as known.
Ann’s shop raised £150 for the Girls’ Rights Fund. In the picture right, Ann is with 2 of her customers
into local schools, quite unabashed about telling other children why FGM is so bad for girls and how it differs from male circumcision.
The cinematography throughout is outstanding, at times very beautiful and always enhancing the story being told. Samson gained the trust of the girls so well that you never feel that they are acting ‘for the camera’ but being themselves. Andrea Wettstein has composed music that uses African rhythms and incorporates African song. Again, this is never intrusive, but enhances the story and film. The editing by Cathy Gulkin has produced a coherent narrative that rightly leaves the viewer moved, impressed, but also wondering how some girls will make out.
Overall, of course, the quality and inspiration of the film are due to the passionate commitment of two women, Giselle Portenier and Rhobi Samwelly. Thanks and congratulations to both.
The Première
The Première had a number of distinguished guests including Her Excellency Emi Furuya, Canadian Ambassador to the Kingdom of Denmark with Rhobi and the girls, Giselle and editor, Cathy Gulkin (see photo left).
The film was extremely well received and after it Giselle, Rhobi and Rosie and Neema got a tremendous reception and were given time to answer a few questions.
Official Trailer ttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xt3XdU0Fddo
Support TDT’s new Girls’ Rights Fund As reported in January 2018 Newsletter, page 10, Between 2014 and 2017, TDT’s
Mugumu Safe House saved up to 500 girls directly saved from FGM across three
‘cutting seasons’ between 2014 and 2017, and others by outreach work in villages.
This was made possible by the overwhelming generosity of donors.
The Girls’ Rights Fund, GRF, will support outreach work against Female Genital Mutilation and Child Marriage.
Funds may be used to support staffing, outreach work, and temporary shelter and food for girls at risk, and
allow them to continue their education instead of being subjected to FGM and married against their will. The
GRF’s first grant was to Hope for Girls and Women Tanzania. This is an NGO set up by former Mugumu Safe
House director Rhobi Samwelly, who has opened a safe house in Butiama in rented property, to protect girls
from the threat of FGM.
Rhobi is assisted by many of the team members who worked with her in Mugumu. Over the 2017-2018 ‘Cutting
Season’ more than 150 girls have so far been saved from FGM.
Hope for Girls and Women Facebook page You can help in the fight against FGM, gender-based violence (GBV) and child marriage, through TDT’s recently-
launched Girls’ Rights Fund, and its new page on MyDonate:
https://mydonate.bt.com/events/nofgmtanz/451816
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Tanzania: Making Progress in Agriculture. Report of the APPG Group on Tanzania, and the British Tanzania Society meeting
on March 6th 2018 The meeting, chaired by Jeremy Lefroy, was addressed by three speakers: Andrew Coulson from the University of
Birmingham, Antony Ellman on behalf of the Tropical Agriculture Association and The Natural Resources Institute,
and Mukesh Lakhani of MD Import Export Ltd. Andrew noted that GDP growth in Tanzania since 2000 had averaged an impressive 7%, with crop sales growth annually exceeding 4% from 2000-2011, dropping to around 3.5% in the
following 6 years. This exceeds the growth in population, showing Tanzania becoming better able to grow crops to
supply its own population. Whilst Cotton and Coffee, two of the country’s traditional commodity export crops have
fared poorly, Cashew and Tobacco have been reasonably lucrative. The greatest improvements in production and returns to farmers have been with Maize, Rice, Potatoes, and Sweet Potato, with these selling to the increasing urban
population within the country, as well as for limited exports.
Both the size and number of farms in the country has increased as more land has been brought under the plough, often following investment by urban dwellers. This has resulted in less shifting cultivation and traditional natural fallow.
There have, however, been failures, in livestock production and large scale irrigation projects.
Antony considered the situation regarding small farmer innovation. Farmers, including small farmers, need security
of tenure, and the present legal framework often does not provide it. Appropriate production technologies need to be encouraged, especially Minimum Tillage techniques, Crop Diversification, and the adoption of legume crops to
enhance soil fertility.
The conclusion is that farmers benefit most from:
More and better applied research;
Extension and technical training;
The development of appropriate financing schemes; and perhaps most critically
Access to appropriate markets.
Mahesh Mahali took up the issue of the demands of export markets, based on his 35 years in the procurement of
“exotic” crops for export to Europe, especially the UK. His advice was that high value produce offers the best
prospect to farmers seeking to export. To do this the development and maintenance of high quality standards is critical, to meet the needs/demands of the large multiples who dominate the UK/European food sector. Critical to this
is cool chain infrastructure, something that Tanzania and a variety of other producer countries need to develop and
improve, especially for vegetables and fruits such as mangoes.
Steve Vaux
Missing weather data - a 'life and death' issue
‘Tanzania is at the centre of a meteorological experiment that promises to transform lives across Africa’ reports Dan Simmons, presenter of BBC’s world renowned technology show Click. Tech start-up, Kukua, (www.kukua.cc) wants to introduce hundreds of low-cost weather stations in Tanzania and beyond, to fill what has become a troubling data void. The World Bank is also backing a scheme being rolled out in Dar es Salaam and elsewhere to spread personal weather monitors. Climate change has made an impact over recent years, with many harvests lost to droughts or to heavy unexpected rain. Without accurate weather data, farmers don't have evidence of what the weather is doing at ground level, and this can be a matter of "life and death". In the Lushoto district of northern Tanzania, Dan meets Peter, a runner bean grower. Last year he lost his entire crop at the start of the shorter spring rainy season. "Timing is everything. If you plant the seeds too early and heavy rains come in the first days, the seeds and dry top soil will be washed off the hillside and into the river channels at the bottom of the fields," he says. Knowing what the weather might do helps him work out when to add pesticides and fertilisers, he explains. Peter has been one of the first farmers in the region to sign up to a text alert scheme that tells him each day what the weather is expected to do in his area. Kukua provides the data from several of its new weather stations it has installed in the area. They are low-cost - about £1,900 depending on the location of the station. "Obviously the weather stations themselves don't give us a forecast directly but we are able to send the information they collect back to the forecasters in Europe and provide better, more reliable advice on the ground," says Micha van Winkelhof, Kukua's chief executive. The World Meteorological Office estimates there are just over 1,100 active weather stations in the whole of Africa
and the number of stations has halved over the last 30 years due to inadequate government funding, maintenance
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costs and limited resources. This dearth of weather stations means that what meteorologists call "ground truthing" - verifying predictions made from satellite data with earth-based evidence - is very difficult. One station has to cover an area of 27,000 sq km (10,425 sq miles) on average, meaning that what should be hard evidence is often just "best guess". Dr Joseph Mukabana, in his recent report for the African Ministerial Conference on Meteorology, says this "poor and sparse" network needs to be expanded to at least 12,000 to provide basic weather services and help manage climate change. Kukua wants to install thousands of weather stations across Africa. They are already in Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda, and Ghana, as well as Tanzania.
Thanks to the BBC for allowing us to print extracts of Dan Simmon’s report. For the complete article please visit http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-41967241
MAPPING UPDATE:
Open Data for Development event in Mwanza
To commemorate Open Data Day on March 3rd, Crowd2Map and Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT) Tanzania organised a free 3 day training conference on how Open Data and Mapping using OpenStreetMap can aid development in Tanzania. Over 90 people from across Tanzania attended the event at the Institute of Rural Development Planning in Mwanza, including community mapping groups from Kigoma, Kagera, Mara and other regions, students from the Institute of Rural Development Planning, IRDP, Mwanza and Dodoma, as well as representatives from Tanzania Red Cross, Tanzania Wildlife Service, Uwezo and many other organisations.
The training covered topics such as what open data is available in Tanzania, what is OpenStreetMap and how it can help Tanzania; how to map your area using satellite images on a laptop; free apps on your phone; and printed Field Papers; and how to create printed village and district level maps. There was a combination of demonstrations, talks and practical workshops, including a session mapping in the field in the area
around the campus. There were also talks by Jonarda Ngissa from Uwezo Tanzania on their citizen led educational assessments, and from Neema Meremo from Hope for Girls and Women Tanzania on how mapping can help protect girls from Female Genital Mutilation.
Evaluations showed that people had learnt a great deal from the training and comments included “it will help me be a better planner for my country”, “now I can teach others to improve our development” and “mapping is useful to indicate which water points are functioning, so we can improve access in Tanzania”. Everyone indicated they would like further such training, and so we hope that many will be able to attend the FOSS4G and HOT conference in Dar es Salaam in August.
If you would like more information about this project visit https://opendataday.org/
or would like help to map a particular village or area please get in touch with Janet, [email protected]
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THE DAVID ANDERSON AFRICA TRUST In March 2013 TDT Trustees were delighted to agree to the generous suggestion by the David Anderson Africa Trust that their Trustees would like to deploy their funds through TDT for projects which conformed to the broad aims and principles of both charities. Since 2013 TDT has been able to apply the DAAT funds to a number of projects which included aspects of training which TDT’s Trust Deed does not allow. Funds have also been allocated, sometimes as shared funding, to education and community projects, especially those which will benefit girls and women. TDT would like to thank DAAT Trustees and the Anderson family for their kind support in helping to fund TDT’s project work in Tanzania, reflecting the long history of friendship for Tanzanian people which both charities have always embraced. I am very grateful to Davina Anderson for contributing the
following history of the family trust for the BTS / TDT Newsletter. Jonathan Pace, Chair TDT
David Anderson, 1920 -1989 David Anderson was born in Scotland in 1920. He won a scholarship to Edinburgh University, but a planned academic career was cut short by World War II and he found himself eventually on a ship off the coast of Ghana on his 21st birthday. The ship was torpedoed and went down, fortunately allowing time for him to leave the party celebrations (rumour has it they had drunk the boat dry) to get into a lifeboat and land on the coast line of Sierra Leone. He forged a career in Africa from then on, being initially part of the colonial administration, but essentially not accepting the dogma of the time that colonies should be managed by public school boys (of which he was not one) delivering administration from London. He was involved with the evolution of the civil service administration away from devolved government and was passionate about what was then known as Africanisation of the civil service. His career moved around Africa, providing consultancy and experience on the transition to independence to Governments in Eastern and Southern Africa through to the 1960s. In 1970 he became The Ford Foundation Representative to Eastern and Southern Africa and later, the EEC Delegate to Lesotho, Botswana and Swaziland. Following the death of his eldest
daughter Nicola, the family moved back to the UK and he became the Assistant Secretary General at the Commonwealth Secretariat and Director of the Commonwealth Fund for Technical Cooperation. He remained deeply involved with African development and affairs and was instrumental in the establishment of SADCC (Southern African Development Coordination Conference) that sought to establish economic independence from the Republic of South Africa for the countries in the Southern African region. He retired on a sunny day in 1983, but was called back the following evening to lead a Commonwealth Secretariat delegation to set up an interim Government following the coup in Grenada. He continued to provide consultancy services mostly in Africa in his retirement, including a visit to Uganda just a few months before he died. David died in October 1989 from a cancer that had been diagnosed a year earlier. He had not shared his illness with professional colleagues and many were shocked by his apparently sudden death. He was awarded the AAPAM (African Association of Public Administration and Management) Star of Africa Award posthumously and the David Anderson Africa Trust was set up.
David Anderson Africa Trust DAAT was established with three initial aims:
1. to produce and publish an annual address for AAPAM on Public Administration,
2. to provide tertiary level education for those in sub-Saharan Africa who cannot normally get funding
such as refugees, women or disabled people and
3. to promote the use of Distance Learning to reduce the dependence on educational infrastructure.
In 1994, DAAT secured lottery funding to support the establishment of a recording studio for the Open University of Tanzania to record degree courses for the use of blind students. Over the following years, DAAT funded 10 students a year to use these courses and graduate with degrees in law. DAAT has funded many projects over the years, focussing on refugees in Eastern Africa attaining higher education degrees, teaching distance learning modules to teachers to enable them to develop these techniques in their own countries, field work for a PhD looking at land rights amongst women in Namibia, bee keeping courses for women to allow them to develop alternative streams of income when their husbands work in the mining industry in South Africa, to name but a few. A small grant was also made to help upgrade the audio equipment of the WIFIP project in Kisumu, Kenya.
DAAT: Opening of the Open University of Tanzania recording studio for blind student degree
programmes
David’s wife, Mary Anderson, handing over some talking watches to Professor Mmari, the then Vice Chancellor of the OUT
David Anderson Africa Trust and Tanzania Development Trust More recently, DAAT has funded projects via the Tanzania Development Trust which has a well established network of contacts in the field. It is with sadness that the family feel it is time to close this legacy of David’s but the time has come and we are delighted to be able to continue to work with TDT and pass our remaining funds over to their projects.
TDT NEWSSupporting Ikondo Secondary School, Muleba, Kagera with a girls’ hostel and science
teaching TDT is delighted to be able to support Ikondo to transform
a half finished teacher’s house into a girls’ hostel.
Students at Ikondo, as in many rural Tanzanian schools,
walk extremely long distances to and from school each
day, some spending up to 4 hours a day walking. Girls are
particularly at risk during this time and also face
additional pressures on their time leading to
underachievement.
Another pressure at schools like Ikondo is the lack of any science or
maths teachers. Therefore we were particularly pleased that an
anonymous donor has stepped in to pay the £40 per month to pay a
local unemployed science graduate to teach students so that they have
the chance to become the doctors and teachers that they aspire to be.
The graduate teacher is being supported via WhatsApp by a retired
science teacher in the UK. If you would like more information on this
initiative please contact Janet [email protected]
Students carrying a sick student up the hill to Rubya
Mission hospital
The girls hostel will be finished in May
TDT: TANZANIA DEVELOPMENT TRUST EVERY POUND GIVEN TO TDT
GOES DIRECTLY TO PROJECTS IN TANZANIA
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Adasa John listens to a radio while walking
towards her field in Rudewa Mbuyuni near
Morogoro. Photo courtesy of
Frederic Courbet, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Radio and mobile phones bring life-changing solutions to rural women As thousands of farmers in central Tanzania battle with long spells of dry weather and erratic rainfall, with little hope of feeding their families, Juliana Yusuph is no longer worried. The 39-year-old mother of five is one of the many smallholder farmers who now successfully grow sorghum, thanks to a mobile phone and radio technology in the village of Ntondo. “I knew nothing about sorghum farming. I never bothered to try, but the weekly radio programme on Radio Maria convinced me,” she says. “It has transformed my entire farming attitude and culture.” Yusuph was part of the Her Farm Radio Project, implemented by the Canadian NGO Farm Radio International, FRI1and supported by International Fund for Agricultural Development IFAD2 in Tanzania, Uganda, Malawi and Ethiopia. Yusuph says when training and radio broadcasts started she didn’t pay attention, but her neighbour convinced her to participate. “Ever since, I have been addicted to the radio programme. I never miss it,” she says. Information she received on growing sorghum and its nutritional value convinced her to grow sorghum to complement maize, which saw yields decline in recent years. She has already harvested five sacks of sorghum in her one hectare field. She is still harvesting, hoping for eight sacks - enough to feed her family. While all FRI projects are designed to be accessible and relevant to both men and women, ‘Her Farm Radio Project’ placed particular focus on the voice and knowledge needs of women farmers. There is a paucity of rural women’s voices in rural radio programmes, and very few radio stations can send reporters to remote areas. “Creating programmes focusing on issues women identified themselves and incorporating their content helped ensure that women listened to the radio programmes”, said Kevin Perkins, executive director of Farm Radio International. “Talking through their phones, women felt protected. It is less intimidating than talking to a journalist with a mic. It allowed us to share the perspective of people we never heard before. Tailoring radio content to the information women need encourages them to pick up new agricultural practices, leading to better food security. About 20 per cent of people who listen to radio programmes about a productive agricultural practice are subsequently inspired to introduce that practice on their farms," he added. The project had another huge impact: using phones, hearing their voices on their radio and sharing their views on gender issues gave women a sense of empowerment and self-confidence. “I thought no one could believe in me because I am uneducated and a woman. But my group members chose me as their chairperson. This gave me confidence to run for a Local Council position, which I got,” “I was so happy when I heard myself educating others on air, I realised that everyone has something to contribute in this world, even if you are just a farmer with no education,” were just two examples of the many feedback comments that reflected this. In Tanzania, the programme on sorghum aired on Radio Maria has ended, but women can now listen to a
programme on soybeans, which they requested. “I want to diversify and farm soybeans. I have been following the radio broadcast and I want to give it a try,” says Zaina Issa a 51-year-old widow and mother of six. Participants to the project also noticed a change in gender roles in the farms, and men taking part in activities once thought of as for women only. Potentially, crop diversification, confidence and gender balance is on the way.
1Farm Radio International, (FRI) www.farmradio.org/portfolio/her-voice-on-air/ Farm Radio International has helped farmers obtain more value for their efforts at every stage of the value chain with
a five-year initiative called Radio for Farmer Value Chain Development. This project helped small-scale farmers
realise improved food security and income by using participatory radio strategies for enhancing their participation in select value chains such as groundnuts, poultry, and cassava. This was a multi-country project in Mali, Tanzania,
Ghana and Malawi.
2International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) is an international financial institution and specialized
United Nations agency. The full article on which this page was based with kind permission from IFAD, can be found
www.ifad.org/web/latest/story/asset/40215656
Page 12
Ntimbanjayo Memorial School Plans for a Secondary School Ntimbajayo Memorial School of Excellence at Namanditi, 7km from Songea in southern Tanzania is the second major project to be supported by RUDA (Ruvuma Development Aid) since the charity was founded by Ralph Ibbott, Chair of the BTS Scottish Group. Named after Ntimbanjayo Millinga, a local man who worked tirelessly for the people of the region and wanted to give the villagers the means to lift themselves out of poverty, it presently consists of a nursery and primary school. But there are now plans afoot to build a secondary school. Louise Johnstone from RUDA explains why, and how the money is being raised.
During our visit to the school project last July, it was proposed by the headmaster and the project manager, that we should consider building four new classrooms for a secondary school. The main impetus for the change came from a need to ensure that the children, presently completing their final year at Ntimbanjayo Memorial School of Excellence, would be able to attend a progressive secondary school. In the recent mock exams, which were taken by the standard 7 classes at five local schools including NMSE, the results show our school performed the best. The top 14 students were all from our school and the entire standard 7 class all gained placed in the top forty out of over 400 students from the region who participated. This demonstrates that these children are ahead of their peer group and might not be sufficiently challenged at secondary level at the existing local secondary schools. Over the last few years, we visited each of the best achieving schools around the Songea region and saw that they tend to have very large class sizes. Our children have had the advantage of being taught since nursery, in small classes and through the medium of English. This means they would be ahead of other students whose primary education has been in Kiswahili. The secondary schools we visited do not offer facilities that are significantly better than we have at NMSE. The children would also miss having access to our library with its new data projection facility where they can watch films and the teachers can use educational materials online. We are also concerned that if the students are split up and sent to different secondary schools, it would be difficult to follow their progress or maintain the good contact we currently have between the sponsors and their sponsored children. At the moment, the children are visited by volunteers twice a year and each time the volunteers stay for a month. So, it is possible to properly monitor the progress of our 53 sponsored children, to spend time with each one and exchange letters between sponsors and their sponsored child.
A great advantage in having our own secondary school is that we would have some control over the setting of fees, which vary from school to school and from year to year, depending on whether Government Exams are taken. If the children remain with us, we can look at the cost of the four years of education and spread it evenly, so that the monthly contributions from sponsors do not keep changing from year to year. So, the pressure is on to raise the necessary funds over the next three years. We estimated that it would cost £10,350 to build a classroom and then we would need a further £2,500 to equip it with furniture, textbooks etc. making a total of £12,850. We have already raised around £5250 and have sent £2000 of this to begin work on the foundations. The bricks that were made last year have been transported to the site, where work will begin on the foundations as soon as the ground is cleared and the current task of creating a covered dining area is completed. Fund raising Events This year’s fund-raising events included six donated art works which were put up for sale at Lyon and Turnbull Auction House at Broughton Place in Edinburgh. The paintings were included in the Modern and Contemporary Art Auction on the 18th April for which no commission was charged. The art works were kindly donated by James Morrison, Lys Hansen, Joe McIntyre, Charles McQueen, Christine Woodside and Ronnie Forbes, six of the Scottish artists who have supported this project since the beginning. The auction raised £4,090 so we are over half way towards the target of £7000 to complete a classroom. A range of further fundraising events is planned over the next few months including a raffle with donated art as the prizes. The raffle should raise £1000 and crowdfunding is being considered via The Ruvuma Development Everyclick page to raise the remaining £2,500. Louise Johnstone
RUDA https://www.facebook.com/RudaTanzania/
Page 13
Swahili Matters
Tingatinga the Art of East Africa (extract from New African magazine February 2005)
Throughout East Africa, particularly where tourists are to be found, visitors are confronted with
brightly coloured paintings of birds, animals, urban and village scenes. It is an art form that … is
certainly part and parcel of contemporary East African culture. And … its provenance can be traced to
one artist - Edward Saidi Tingatinga. He was born in 1932 in a small village called Nakapanya in
southern Tanzania, close to the Mozambique border. In 1957 he left his village to seek his fortune, first
travelling to the Tanga district and working on the sisal plantations before trying his luck in the big city
- Dar es Salaam … It is said that during [the] period [when he lived in Msasani Mikoroshoni district],
he began offering his skills as a painter, decorating houses and producing wall paintings. From this
activity, he managed to collect unfinished tins of paint and scraps of hardboard and in his spare time
began painting animals and other scenes for his own amusement. When, in 1970, Tingatinga married,
he realised that he had to try and find another source of income. He found a job at the Muhimbili
Medical Clinic as a porter and his wife took to selling fruit and vegetables, as well as his crafts and
paintings, at the Oyster Bay shopping centre. Thanks to a tourist who bought one of his works and
began promoting it, his paintings were soon in high demand. Tingatinga quit his job at the clinic and
took up painting full time. He could even afford to employ several young relatives to assist him. But
fate was to take a tragic turn for Tingatinga. One night, as he was coming home with two friends, the
police stopped their car at a roadblock. They were looking for a gang of bank robbers who had earlier
carried out a daring raid in downtown Dar es Salaam. The driver of the car panicked as he had no
driver's licence and tried to speed away from the roadblock. The police opened fire, Tingatinga was hit
and died on the spot. He was 40 years old and he left a wife and two children. After his death, his
studio helpers continued to paint and made a living by hawking paintings at the Oyster Bay shopping
centre until the mid-1990s when the Swiss Association for International Cooperation organised a
successful exhibition in Switzerland where over 600 paintings were sold.
Translation into Swahili courtesy of Donovan McGrath
Tingatinga Sanaa ya Afrika Mashariki
Kila mahali Afrika Mashariki, hasa mahali pa watalii, wageni hukabiliwa na picha za ndege, wanyama, mandhari ya
miji na ya vijiji zenye rangi zinazong'aa. Ni mtindo wa sanaa ambao … kwa uhakika ni sehemu muhimu ya
utamaduni wa kisasa wa Afrika Mashariki. Na … asili yake inatoka kwa msanii mmoja - Edward Saidi Tingatinga.
Alizaliwa mwaka elfu moja, mia tisa thelathini na mbili katika kijiji kidogo kinachoitwa Nakapanya kule kusini
mwa Tanzania, karibu na mpaka wa Msumbiji. Mwaka elfu moja, mia tisa hamsini na saba aliondoka katika kijiji
chake kutafuta bahati yake, kwanza kusafiri kwenda wilaya ya Tanga na kufanya kazi kwenye mashamba ya
mikonge kabla ya kujaribu bahati yake katika jiji kubwa - Dar es Salaam … Inasemekana kwamba wakati wa
kipindi hicho [alipokuwa anaishi katika wilaya ya Msasani Mikoroshoni], alianza kutoa ujuzi wake kama mpaka
rangi, kupamba nyumba na kuumba picha kutani. Kutokana na kitendo hicho, aliwahi kukusanya makopo yenye
rangi ambayo hayajaisha pamoja na mabaki ya vipande vya ubao na katika muda wake wa ziada akaanza kuchora
wanyama kwa rangi na mandhari mengine kwa kiburudisho chake mwenyewe. Alipofunga ndoa mwaka elfu moja,
mia tisa na sabini, akatambua kwamba ilimbidi ajaribu kutafuta chanzo kingine cha kipato. Alipata kazi kwenye
Kliniki ya Tiba ya Muhimbili kama mpagazi na yule mkewe akauza matunda na mboga, pamoja na kazi zake za
mikono na picha zilizochorwa kwa rangi, kwenye sehemu kuu ya maduka ya Oyster Bay. Kwa shukrani za mtalii
fulani aliyenunua mojawapo ya sanaa zake akaanza kuitangaza, picha zake za kuchorwa kwa rangi zikawa
kutamaniwa na wengi. Tingatinga aliacha kazi yake kwenye kliniki hicho akaanza kuchora kwa rangi kwa muda
kamili. Aliweza hata kuwaajiri ndugu wadogo wamsaidie. Lakini majaliwa yameamua vingine kwa Tingatinga.
Usiku mmoja, huku akija nyumbani na marafiki wawili, maaskari polisi walilisimamisha gari lao kwenye kizuizi cha
barabara. Walikuwa wakitafuta genge la majambazi ya benki waliofanya uvamizi wa benki jijini Dar es Salaam.
Yule dereva wa gari hilo alikuwa na hofu kubwa kwa sababu yeye hakuwa na leseni ya kuendesha gari akajaribu
kuondoka kwa kasi kutoka kwenye kizuizi hicho cha barabara. Hao maaskari polisi walifyatua risasi, Tingatinga
akapigwa risasi akafa papo hapo. Alikuwa na miaka arobaini akaacha mke na watoto wawili. Baada ya kifo chake,
wasaidizi wa studio yake waliendelea kuchora kwa rangi na wakapata riziki kwa kuuza picha zinazochorwa kwa
rangi kwenye sehemu kuu ya maduka ya Oyster Bay mpaka kati ya miaka ya elfu moja, mia tisa na tisini ambapo
Muungano wa Uswisi wa Ushirikiano wa Kimataifa ulipanga maonyesho yaliyofanikiwa kule Uswisi ambako zaidi
ya picha mia sita zilizochorwa kwa rangi ziliuzwa.
Page 14
NEW BTS COMMITTEE MEMBERSIn the last issue of the Newsletter we introduced Tessa Most, our new Executive secretary, Gabriel
Mgambwa our new Treasurer, and John Wood our new membership Secretary. Here we welcome
a further seven new members who were also newly elected at our AGM in October.
Peter Kaiza Peter was born in South Kensington, West London, but spent his formative years in Tanzania. He is currently based in Essex and has been practising as a data scientist and statistician for a number of years. He is fluent in two Tanzanian languages, Kiswahili and Kihaya.
Dr Gideon Mlawa MD MRCPUK, SCE Dr Mlawa graduated in Trakia University Bulgaria. He
further specialised in Endocrinology & Diabetes/General
Internal Medicine in UK with both the Wessex and London Deaneries. His
current role is Consultant Physician in Diabetes and Endocrinology/General
Internal Medicine at Queens Hospital Romford. He is the interim treasurer
of TUHEDA.
Dr Hassan Hamza MD Dr Hassan Hamza MD graduated in Poland, he has practiced medicine in Poland, UK and
Tanzania. Specialising in General Medicine and Public Health, he
currently works as Specialty doctor in Geriatrics and Rehabilitation Medicine in NHS
London. He is a member of several organisations and charities based in UK. He is the
the Interim Chair of TUHEDA.
Alex Paurine, BTS Website Manager Alex Paurine is an expert in Sustainable Energy Systems Engineering at London South Bank University where he also lectures in Engineering Mathematics. He was born in Tanzania but has lived in the UK since 1997
Ida HadjivayanisIda Hadjivayanis is from Zanzibar, and has a PhD from SOAS where she is a Senior Lecturer in Swahili with a specialism in translation. She has translated Alice in Wonderland into Swahili and is currently working on the publication of an anthology of Swahili translations with Commonwealth Writers. She spent her formative years in many countries due to her parents nature of work. These include France, Lesotho, South Africa, Guinea and Sudan.
She is married with three children.
Godlisten and Charlotte Pallangyo Godlisten and Charlotte Pallangyo are based in South East London. Godlisten was born and grew up in Arusha, Tanzania and is currently studying Global Politics and International Relations at Birkbeck. He has been involved in community development projects in Tanzania and South Africa for over 10 years and continues this passion from the UK particularly in northern Tanzania. Charlotte, who was born and grew up in the UK, studied Swahili and Development Studies at SOAS in London. She has lived and worked in Tanzania and currently works in International
Development with a focus on infrastructure, education, and presently women's economic empowerment.
Page 15
would be greatly appreciated.” Andrew Coulson
BTS Who’s Who & Contacts
BTS CHAIR Andrew Coulson 0121 475 4615
BTS VICE CHAIR Petronilla Mlowe mwakatumap@gmail BTS EXECUTIVE SECRETARY Tessa Most 02392347021 [email protected] BTS TREASURER Gabriel Mgambwa 07968851007
BTS MEMBERSHIP SECRETARY John Wood 01432 850543 [email protected]
BTS EDUCATION GROUP CONVENOR Janet Chapman [email protected] BTS SEMINAR ORGANISERS Janet Chapman and Alex Paurine
TDT CHAIR: Jonathan Pace o7901563322 [email protected] TDT EXECUTIVE SECRETARY: Vacant TDT TREASURER: Robert Gibson [email protected]
TDT FINANCIAL ACCOUNTS MANAGER: Joe Warioba TDT FUNDING APPLICATIONS: Phil Grant
[email protected] TDT CARD SALES: [email protected]
EDITOR TANZANIAN AFFAIRS Ben Taylor [email protected] WEB EDITOR Alex Paurine [email protected] BTS NEWSLETTER EDITOR Sue Mitchell 020 3665 1144 33 Viola Ave, London SE2 0TQ [email protected]
BTS President: HE Ali Hassan Mwinyi, former President of the United Republic of Tanzania BTS Vice-Presidents: Derek Ingram, Ron and Liz Fennell, Trevor Jaggar, David Brewin
BTS Tanzania Chapter contacts: Hon Secretary: Ms Rita Mkama [email protected] Chairman: Ambassador Paul Rupia [email protected]
BTS Scottish Group contacts: Ann Burgess 07858 481038 [email protected]
NEXT NEWSLETTER DEADLINE
1stAugust 2018.
Tel 02036651144 but email preferred
Karibuni New BTS members
Tessa Most, Waterlooville, Hampshire Sarah Kennedy, Redhill, Surrey Susan Roddick Bethany Counter
FUTURE EVENTS Implementation of Tanzanian Agricultural Products
Traceability System Workshop
Sat 23rd June 2018, 11:00 to 18:00
Room: LR 10, London Road Building
London South Bank University The main objective of this event is to present the strategic measures that
the businesses must implement to ensure compliance with the
importation standards/regulations of the EU, Codex alimentarius and the
World Trade Organisation. These measures include the traceability
system from field to fork, phytosanitary requirements, food fraud,
compliance at Border of Inspection Post, among other initiatives.
Tanzania APPG (All Party Parliamentary Group)
Tues July 19th, 6pm. Details to follow: Look on BTS website
for
BTS Newsletter May 2018 Volume 16, Issue 2 Back page
BTS Diaspora contacts: Petronilla Mlowe mwakatumap@gmail Fadhili Maghila [email protected] Joe Warioba [email protected] Renatus Mgetta [email protected]
