Life-Changing Mentorship for Tanzanian Girls

In mid-January AfricAid staff returned to work after a well-earned break, and 423 dedicated Kisa Scholars returned to their respective schools and resumed their Kisa leadership and life skills training.

One of the schools we partner with to deliver the Kisa Curriculum is Orkeeswa Secondary School, a unique rural school serving a mostly Maasai population. Orkeeswa students come from a community that is marginalized and impoverished, with very limited access to education.

The Kisa Curriculum is normally taught to girls in their final two years of secondary school – Forms 5 and 6, also known as Advanced Levels. But at schools like Orkeeswa, very few girls enjoy the kind of circumstances that allow them to make it that far. So in 2013 AfricAid decided to recruit Form 3 and 4 girls and teach the Kisa Curriculum to them. Just having made it to secondary school is a massive achievement and these girls are already considered potential community leaders. So teaching them leadership and life skills is very appropriate and is proving to be a great success.

The new school year for Forms 3 and 4 commenced in January and we have recently finished recruitment at Orkeeswa. 12 girls have just started Year 1; last year’s Year 1 girls (18 of them) have just started Year 2 of the program. Kisa Mentors Eligrania and Gladys have been delighted with the progress of the Scholars to date and are looking forward to the year ahead, as they watch the transformation of these young women, especially in terms of confidence and self-belief.

Reaching out to girls like those who attend Orkeeswa would not be possible without the generosity shown by our Global Giving donors. Again we say thank you very much. We hope that each donor gets as much satisfaction out the success of the Kisa Project and the achievements of Kisa Scholars as we do. Please keep giving – to date we have raised almost half of our Global Giving target of $75,000 to keep the Project going.

Links:

• Kisa Project Webpage

We are delighted to be able to report on the ongoing success of AfricAid’s Kisa Project, which with your support, provides life-changing training and mentoring for secondary school girls in Tanzania.

The most important event on the Kisa calendar is undoubtedly Career Day. Career Day brings together current Kisa Scholars, inspirational Tanzanian women leaders and a wide range of career professionals for a full-day career and leadership forum. The aim is to create a networking opportunity for scholars, give them access to individuals already well-established in careers that are of interest to them, allow them to hear from passionate and successful Tanzanian female role models, and to allow them to share their challenges and successes with their peers.

Career Day 2014, held in October, was a huge success! 430 enthusiastic current Kisa Scholars attended the event, along with a further 70-odd special and invited guests. Upon arrival, each girl was given a t-shirt (which are very highly valued by Scholars), a notebook, and a pen. Each of the three guest speakers was warmly welcomed, and their key messages about resilience, strength, courage and determination in the face of adversity were taken on board by scholars, who tell us that the day both inspired and motivated them to follow their dreams. Scholars later participated in small group sessions led by career professionals. They also had a lot of fun catching up with each other, and very enthusiastically enjoyed the performance of well-known Tanzanian entertainer and female activist Nakaaya Sumari. Quite a few girls took to the stage with her, perhaps indicating the success of the confidence-building component of Kisa!

When you support the Kisa Project, you allow us to hold incredibly beneficial special events like Career Day. We have seen the great benefits the event brings to scholars, and we thank all our donors very much for helping us to hold the event in 2014.

Links:

• AfricAid's Kisa Project