Trying to Change the Culture

We had an incident at school today.  Monika overheard a group of women teasing a student, because she doesn’t have children.  They basically told her over and over that there was something wrong with her because she didn’t have children.  The student is a petite, very quiet, soft-spoken woman in her 30s.  Monika was appalled by the conversation, intervened on the student’s behalf, and decided to have an all-women’s meeting after class.

We all gathered in the English classroom and Monika gave a speech in English and Fatihia, a female translator, translated it into Swahili for the women.  Monika spoke of the incident and why it wasn’t acceptable at GHTA.  She said “Here at GHTA all of us are equal.  It doesn’t matter if you are married. It doesn’t matter if you are not married. It doesn’t matter if you have children.  It doesn’t matter if you don’t have children. Here we are defined by what we have in our hearts and in our heads.  That is all that matters. You have difficult lives. You are strong women. You should be supporting each other, and helping each other so that all of you can succeed.”  It was a moving and powerful speech.

 

The women seemed to get it.  In a big voice at the end of the Speech, the student who was being teased said “Thank you”.  Women in Tanzania have a long way to go before they catch up to the parts of the world where women are respected and treated as equals.  Monika and GHTA are doing their part to help the process along.