Starfish: Loti

Loti is a special student. He is this year's only man. The class of 2014 is the first year GHTA could have all 50 students be all women. In the first four years of the program, it was about 20% men for two reasons. The first was that there was not quite enough interest to have a full class of women that fit the criteria for the program. The second reason was that having male students in a women's empowerment program is working towards the goal of equality from both sides. Over time, it was made clear that having a full women's only school. In this year's 98% female class, we see that the women are more confident, speak up more, and have a closer relationship with each other. 

Loti is our one exception this year because he is also employed as our watchman. The Tanzanian staff members are all former students, except for Loti up until this year. When I asked him how he felt as the only male in class, he gave a big smile and said he likes it. He said the school has taught him about respecting women and working together "in cooperation" (instead of men always being the boss). He fits right in with the other students, and they all especially love when he helps clean the classroom. He's doing his small part to break through gender norms here in Moshi...

My name is Loth Elias Mollel. I am 24 years old, I live in Majengo and my family lives in Arusha. I am not married. My education level is form four and reason which I did not continue school is poor family. That is why I want to be part of GHTA because I want to know different things and improve my knowledge about business planning and how to do different things in GHTA. I am planning to apply my education after graduation in many ways. I want to go to college and maybe I will study engineering. It would lead to many good things. My dream for the future is to continue school. 

Starfish: Zuwena

I am Zuwena. I am 27 years old. I live with my two children. I stopped my education at form two (8^th grade) because I got pregnant. I decided to join GHTA because I need to learn about entrepreneurship and to exchange ideas with other people. I have learned many things like save money, record business expenses, don’t lose hope, and if you have old age you are still able to learn. Life is complicated for me. The good part about GHTA is I meet with other students and I get new knowledge about life. The hard part about being in school as an adult is finding help for my children. I will do my job without depending on another person. I will use my education to start a new business. My future dream is to start women fashion shop. I think I will start to sell women’s clothes after I finish school. GHTA opened my dream because they give me knowledge about business and many things.  

Starfish: Dorothea

Hi my name is Dorothea and I am 31 years old. I live with my mother and my daughter. I’m not married.  My education level is form four (10^th grade) and my education did not continue because my family is poor. So my parents try to help me study but no money to pay for school fees. I have two younger sisters, they need to go to school, but my parent they don’t enough money to  pay the school fees . So I will not continue because of my younger sisters. I need to go to school but the condition of my family is too bad. I will stay home to help my family and my younger sisters. I looked for work to help my younger sisters to pay the school fees. I wanted to be a part of GHTA because GHTA is a school to help people to know to speak English, learn business and study vocation. For myself, GHTA helps me to know the rights of women.  The first day when I came here to GHTA I feel shy, no confidence, but now I have confidence to talk and stand up with my friends and tell how I feel when am here at GHTA. The hardest part about being school as adult is I am single parent, and I have one child and all responsibility depends on me.  The best part about being school as an adult is to know how to manage time and meet people from different countries and get different ideas.

Starfish: Catherine

My name is Catherine Kaale. I am 26 years old. I am married. My husband’s name is Izack. I live with my husband and two children—Gladnys and Goodluck. My education level is Standard seven (6^th grade). I did not continue with education because I did not have someone to support me even though I performed well on the national exam. I wanted to be a part of GHTA because I want to learn how to overcome challenges and to learn skills and English. Now I know how to talk English, to braid hair, to paint, and take photos. I also know how to plan for a business. The hardest part about being in school as an adult is sometimes my children are sick so it causes me to worry about school and family. The best part about being in school as an adult is to know the meaning of education. The biggest challenge in my life so far is one day my son was sick and that time was during examinations so it was very difficult to think about both things. My dream is to be in hotel management. 

Starfish: Furaha

My name is Furaha (which is Swahili for Happy). My age is 36 years old. I live with my husband. I have one son who is 13 years old. My education level is form four (10^th grade). My education did not continue because of my parents’ low income. I wanted to be a part of GHTA because a long time ago I was thinking about education but I didn’t have any way to get it. I had nothing to do. Now I can achieve this goal. The most important thing which I have learned since being at GHTA is to improve my English. The hardest part about being in school as an adult is I forgot many things which I was studying when I was young. The best part is that I already know the importance of education more than when I was young. Now I can work hard because I know what I am doing and I want to change my life. The most difficult job I ever had was selling cosmetics door-to-door. I was walking long distances and talking with many people. It was not good business for me. I don’t like it. I plan to apply my GHTA education by starting a child care center. I want to plan this business instead of selling cosmetics because I love children and the people of my place need this service. I am sure I will get customers and also I will help women to take care of their children in order to make them free to do other activities. GHTA influenced my dreams for making me know that I can have more education and I can do big and good things in my life. I want to be a successful woman and help other people. 

Starfish: Paulina

My name is Paulina. I’m 27 years old. I live with my family and I’m married. I have three children. My level of education is form three (9^th grade). I didn’t continue my education because my father passed away. I wanted to be a part of GHTA because this education helps me to know what I will do in my life. There are many challenges in my life and I am a mother so everything is dependent on my children. Some examples of challenges are taking care of my children when they are sick. One time I was given work at a shop by some people but I was not paid. My life is complicated. My younger brother and sister both depend on me. Now it is the rainy season and transportation is very difficult. After graduation, I have a plan to help different mamas who have low income to teach them business and how to save money. I realized many mamas who are doing business don’t know how to save money. My dream for the future is to have a wholesale cosmetics store.

The First Starfish Story

Happy Mother's Day to all the mamas and female role models out there. As a gift to my momma Janet, the reason why I am here, I am going to introduce a new project. Janet started this blog and named in "The Starfish of Moshi" because of the Starfish Story. This is a parable of sorts that you can read under the "Starfish" tab above. It exemplifies the model of changing the world one person at a time. Here I want to personify the starfish Give a Heart to Africa helps-- our students.

I have asked them to answer a few questions and share their lives with my readers. You can read the questions in the "Starfish" tab. I edited the writing only enough for readability but did my best to retain the writer's voice and integrity. Our first installment is from an exceptionally intelligent woman, Tausi. Her name means "peacock" in Swahili and boy does that name fit her well. She is bright, strong, and a bit of a show-off. She scored a 99% on her English midterm and a 96% in business. (The average was in the 60s.) She has the best English in school and credits this to reading English books regularly. Setting the bar extraordinarily high, here is her story...

Tausi (on the right) with Paulina typing for the first time on a computer.
She was writing this story of course!

My name is Tausi Mfinanga. I am thirty nine years old. I am married. My husband’s name is Sadiki Shabani. He is fifty two years old. I have three children. I live with my family in Bonite Chekereni. My education level is Form Four (about 10^th grade). I didn't continue with further education because I had so many challenges. After form four, I was asked to wait for a year at home taking care of the children and a house generally. After a year, I was told by my cousin that there is not enough money to continue with studies. I continued waiting, at last I was pregnant and I could not think about school anymore. I like being part of GHTA because this is the only chance I can get to fulfill my ambitions. I like learning different skills, educating other women in my area how to overcome financial problems, to teach other women how to fight for their rights and self-awareness, to now their position in the family and their responsibilities. 

After GHTA, I would like to use part of my time to educate women on different ways in which one can get income. The most important thing  I have learned since I joined GHTA has been math. when I  was in  school, I hated  mathematics, but in GHTA  I enjoyed learning math  because the volunteers taught us very clearly so that everyone understood. I have improved my English very much since at home I had no one to talk to. Now I enjoy speaking English to other students and teachers at GHTA. I have learned different skills like hair braiding, photos, and painting. I did not know that before. I’m very proud of it. I enjoy being in school as an adult because I meet other students and exchange ideas about life, and learn different things so I refresh my mind. School has changed my life. It makes me busy and punctual. I used to work at a coffee plantation. It was a very difficult job. The salary was less than $2 per day and there were very few benefits. Then I became a clerk at the plantation. I cannot forget this work because there was no respect in working area, women were being abused, and there were no human rights or freedom. Employment is the biggest challenge in my life. 

My dream is to be a light in society, to educate women how to change their lives, to teach them different skills in which they can get income to support the family rather than leaving all of those responsibilities to men. GHTA has influenced my dreams because I once had a dream of studying but I failed. Now my dream is back—I am at school! I can study many things and at last change my life and bring development to my family and to society generally. GHTA is a light in my life. 

From left to right: My co-teachers Rahimu, Molly, and Megan,Tausi and me. During Tausi's home visit. 

Art Teacher

I have fully embraced my role as teacher yet again here in Give a Heart to Africa’s Vocations class. We are just wrapping up the first project that I have seen from start to finish. The idea of this class is to give students marketable skills that they can make a direct (or sometimes indirect) profit from. When I arrived eight weeks ago, they were learning the art of hair braiding and cornrows—a popular business here. The most recent project was painting coconut pods.

Coconut pods come from coconut trees and are mainly used as firewood locally. A previous volunteer brought the idea of painted pods with her because she had seen them sold at a market in Mexico. She brought the supplies and an example; I was left to figure out the rest.

I wouldn't exactly call myself the artistic type. I was the type of kid in art class to use it as a social hour, and impatience usually beat out perfection when it came to the final product. (Unless we’re talking pottery class, but that’s another story!) Nevertheless, I appreciate beautiful things and can certainly guide students to get their creative juices flowing… easier said than done.

The process has been quite time-intensive. We started practicing with watercolors on paper, and I explained the idea of primary versus secondary colors and concrete versus abstract designs. We then practiced on scrap pieces while students collected the pods from around their neighborhoods. 

Then the painting began! I had to let go of any perfectionist desires I may have had (holla at my fellow virgos) during this exercise. It also took a great deal of patience explaining the painting process right down to the amount of paint to put on the brush. There were many trial and errors for the right water to paint ratio. We also practiced the English phrase, "make it even" quite a bit! 

We plan to sell the pods at the new GHTA co-op. Students that have already graduated are selected to work at the co-op for a year. They make products and sell them in the co-op with the idea of building a market and gaining hands-on business experience.

Next up is tie-dying! Thank you Saint Michael’s College for the extensive tie-dye training. :) I'm enjoying teaching outside of my comfort zone. Now I can check off art teacher off the bucket list.