Friday, July 27, 2018

Success story of Liza

"Liza" is a 17-year-old girl living with her family in Nyamagana district in the region of Mwanza. She lives with her mother and four siblings. Three of her older siblings are married and live with their families. Her father ran away from the family when Liza was twelve years old and now he has remarried in another village. The economic situation of the family is poor because the only provider is the mother and she has health issues. Other relatives are not able to support the family.

Liza goes to form one in secondary school and she wants to become a teacher in the future. Liza has been attending Ni Hekima Pekee’s “Wasiliana” project for girls support group since January 2017. In the middle of April 2018 Liza told our workers that she is not going to school anymore. This was because her mother couldn’t afford transport from home to school after the changes of the daladala routes. Now she had to take two daladalas instead of one on the single way.

NIHEP started the follow-up on the same day that Liza told about the situation. We visited the family and decided to support the transport and the missing school materials for Liza so she could go to school next week. After the weekend our field officer visited the family again and found out that Liza still didn’t go to school. She was afraid not finding her name in the student registration since she hadn’t gone to school for the past three months. Also, she hadn’t told the teacher the reason for not coming. The next day we discussed about the situation with Liza and the family and Liza agreed to go to school. We decided to escort her to school because the head teacher was frustrated with the situation. After meeting the head teacher we all agreed that Liza continues going to school.

On May we met the street chairman and he promised to provide some help with the transport occasionally. At the moment Liza is going to school and we continue with the follow-ups.