Dave- Why I have returned to Tanzania

I am often asked why I come to Tanzania and in particular why I volunteer at Give a Heart to Africa (www.giveahearttoafrica.org).  I admit that I have struggled to explain why I do it and why I feel it’s important for men to volunteer at a women’s empowerment project.  

Women are not given the same educational opportunities as men here, and in fact, women in Tanzania (and much of Africa) are given fewer opportunities in every aspect of life.  There is a cost (not a huge amount, about $20 per year, but cost prohibitive for many families) to send a child to school, and it is the boys who are generally given the opportunity if the family finances allow.  If men get greater opportunity it should also be men who help to give women equal opportunity.

This is Heavenlight, she comes from Boma, a town outside of Moshi that is more than an hour away by daladala (a minivan used as bus transportation - usually overloaded with people).  She makes the long trip with her one and a half year old baby, Habibu.  He’s an active little boy who runs around the classroom, the courtyard (usually with one of our watchmen close behind) or pesters his mother for attention.  Heavenlight makes the trip every day because this is her opportunity to get education. GHTA allows her to bring her son to school because if she couldn’t bring him, she wouldn’t come. She is learning English, business skills, and a vocation and is doing well.

When you meet someone like Heavenlight who is willing to travel so far, and work very hard to get an education, why wouldn’t you want to help?  Educating women like Heavenlight, her son Habibu will grow up with a mother who understands that woman and men should be educated equally.  She will be exposed to men and women (and couples) who come here and share the work without regard to gender roles, and where women are treated with respect.  Heavenlight can begin to teach Habibu in a way that is different from the way his father was raised and his father’s father, so on and so on.  Of course, Heavenlight is only one Tanzanian woman, and each GHTA class includes approximately 50 women per year, but that is why this blog is named the Starfish of Moshi.  Each one of us can’t change every life—but each of us can make a difference for at least one.