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| We had the great number of girls participating on Wednesday. |
On Wednesday 11th of October, we celebrated the International Day of the Girl Child with Wasiliana-group, two mothers of the girls, and with two special guests. Last Saturday, the girls had wished to discuss about women's leader opportunities on this special day, so we arranged two ladys to come and share with us about the current literature project they are helping with about Women leaders of Africa.
In the beginning of the session, we discussed together about leadership in society and at home. The girls were very familiar with current leaders, both male and female, in Tanzania and in Mwanza's society. The discussion also leaded us to share some things about gender roles at home. Most of the girls described quite stereotypical gender roles between family members, but we were delighted that two girls also shared a little bit different models of how their household duties have been shared between father, mother and children.
After the introduction of the topic and our guests, we were shared with two stories of the Woman leader's in Africa. Our guests told us about Liberian peace activist Leymah Roberta Gbowee, who, together with Liberian women's peace movement, helped bring an end to the Second Civil War in Liberia in 2003. Also, they told us about Queen Nanny of the Maroon, political leader of Jamaica, originally born in Ghana, who's action contributed the escape of almost 1000 slaves over her lifetime in Jamaica.
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| In the end of the session! |
The girls had focused well on the topic through whole session, and participated actively with sharing their thoughts and questions. They were also excited about our guests and the topic, and there were as many as 35 girls participating our session today. It was great to see, how bravely the girls nowadays introduce themself and talk in front of everyone, when in the beginning of the year, when the group started its activities, they were barely able to speak out loud. We really admire the courage of our clever, sweet and caring girls!
Anni Pihlaja
The writer is Master’s degree social work student from University of Tampere in Finland and is currently doing her internship with Ni Hekima Pekee.
