Do YOU want to work with us?

NIHEP is looking for two Field Officers and one Monitoring&Evaluation Officer to join our team. If you have will to help and work with people, who are living in vulnerable conditions, send us an application letter. We will offer you the interesting working environment and the possibility to be a part of organization's development.

Check the job advertisement HERE and share the post, if you know people, who might be interested in.

The International Day of the Girl Child

For the honor of the Wednesday's special day, we can announce that the total number of the girls in our Wasiliana-group has already grown over 60! This means, that now over 60 girls have an opportunity to speak out loud and to learn how to communicate and protect their rights. They also have a safe space to share their ideas and worries with others.

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.

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. 

The Success Story of Charles's Family

(We have changed the names of the family members for protecting their privacy. A permission for publishing the story and photos has been asked from the family.)

The  children of the family with their new bricks for building extra room
for their house.

When NIHEP met Charles’s family for the first time, it was February 2013. We found the oldest daughter of the family, Mageni (22 y.), at home with her seven younger siblings. The parents weren’t anywhere around. They told that their father had been in the hospital several days and was very sick, when the mother was working all day in the hotel like in every other day of the week. Her salary though was so small, 1500 tzs per day (0,60 euro), that it wasn’t sufficient to live up the whole family. With more interviewing it appeared that none of the kids were attending the school, because they were lacking school equipment and some of them had never even started to attend. Their clothes were dirty and torn, and their house was so small that some of the children were sleeping in the neighbor’s house. The oldest children were usually eating only once in a day because of the lack of food and sometimes even younger ones hadn’t got their breakfast daily. The family lacked money for the treatment of their father and had started to think about selling their house because of that. Their relatives weren’t able to help them anyhow because of their own challenges.

NIHEP started the active working with the family right away. NIHEP advised them to contact the ward officers with chairman of the street, so that they could help them to get free treatment for their father in the hospital. In the same time, NIHEP helped the children go back to school by providing them the school materials. All of them wished to continue their studies and also the parent wished them to go back to school. Finally father got little bit better too and was able to return home.

When NIHEP had helped the family with that current, alarming situation, we began to discuss with the mother about how could she make more money for the family, when father was still too old and sick to do so. Mrs. Charles wanted to have her own little business, and after careful planning and with NIHEP’s economic support she was eventually able to do so. In August 2014, Mrs. Charles established her own little cafeteria with her oldest daughter Mageni. This was a great success for Mrs. Charles, who was used to live with her husband’s earnings and take care of the children at home, at the same time thinking that she wouldn’t be able to do anything else but that.

Soon after that, in the same year, Mr. Charles passed away and Mageni gave the birth for her first baby at home. She was not together with the father of the baby. Still, the family had managed to get over the worst part of their problems and cafeteria business had started to go well. The children were able to attend at school and family was getting more food than before. However, NIHEP provided three mattresses to the family to give them more suitable sleeping conditions at home, because even if they had their own business now, they didn’t had enough money to make more expensive investments. We continued to do regular follow-ups to the family to make sure that they are still doing well, and we also assisted them the one more time in 2016 by providing new school supplies to the children.

In September 2017, family’s situation is still stable. Mageni’s daughter is three years old now and has grown up as she should have been. The younger children are still going to school, and two of the older brothers has already moved away from the home and are making their own living.  The other older sons (15 and 20 years old), who have already finished with their studying, have jobs and are bringing money for the family. A little by little, Mrs. Charles has bought the bricks for building an extra rooms for their current house. Now, they have almost enough of those to start an operation. Also, now they have enough money for proper food and children’s school supplies. Mageni is not worried about family’s situation anymore and thinks that they are doing quite okay in their life.

Lion’s club has supported the family for four years, and that has made a big difference for the family’s situation. Without the financial backing from them, the family would not be doing as well as it is nowadays. We want to thank Lion's Club, and also Mwembe, for coordinating the support to us.

NIHEP in the network of social services

How do NIHEP work together with and within the Tanzanian social service system?

If you are going to work with people’s problems, you have to know well the systems which can help people to deal with those problems. In many countries, there are many steps you have to go through before you can get a child to the safe place in foster care or maybe even in  a hospital, if the child’s parents are against that idea. Tanzania is not an exception.  To show, which stake holders we are working with when it comes to the situations of vulnerable families, we are doing a little summary of Tanzanian social services and how they work.

The girls group in Lwanhima ward. The girls group
is also place to find out, what is going on in girl's life and
is there problems that need to be noticed.

NIHEP is working in Nyamagana district, in Lwanhima and Butimba wards. The wards are also separated to different streets or villages. Each street has the chairman, which is elected among the people living on the street. We are working with families and children on the streets, and when we first introduce ourselves and our activities to the street’s Chairman, we are free to work, how we want:  we can give financial support, visit families and arrange the groups for people with the same kind of life situations. We try to get people to connect with each other, that giving and getting help would be easier. In the street and in the wards we have para-social workers (people, who have short education in social problems in the community and how to solve them), who knows the people of the area and have a better connection with them than a worker who is coming from somewhere else. Getruda and Kennedy are para-social workers working for NIHEP, but not all of them are working with any organization. Kennedy is working on Butimba ward, Getrude is working on Lwanhima ward. Usually that support is enough.

Sometimes there appears to be that kind of problems, which can’t be helped only with counseling and other lighter support. These kinds of problems might be, for example, that a child is beaten badly by parents, a child is not getting enough food and is really malnourished, a child has dropped out of the school, parents are having bad mental health or alcoholism problems or child is left as an orphan. In these kinds of cases, we must contact the Chairman of the street, because he should know about issues appearing on his street, but also because he can sometimes help the helping processes to go forward by contacting right persons.

In the ideal situation, The Chairman is responsible to help people in his own area to solve their problems because he is also the authority in the area. In the practice, the chairman usually lacks information about services people are needing or he doesn’t otherwise have enough education or knowledge to counsel those people. Sometimes it happens that even the Chairman can’t really help the situation better anyhow. The people are trusting them, and for the Chairman, it is then the lost battle, if they can’t do anything about the problem. So sometimes this trust goes against itself, and the Chairman doesn’t want to admit that the family’s problem is not solved. Then the problem continues, without anyone who could bring the solving process to the next step. That is the place where NIHEP is needed again. We do regular follow-up meetings for the families we are working with. Then we can make sure, that process is still going on forward, and if it isn’t, we can re-start it.

Again, in the ideal situation, there would be Social Welfare Assistants who are working on the ward level. The assistant would be the person, who could help to solve the problems of the family. In the real world, they barely exist. So, the next step after the informing the Chairman is the Social Welfare Office of the District. That is the place, where most of Tanzanian university educated social welfare officers are working. The social workers can give councils and recommendations for the situation, and if a child needs a place in a children’s home, they can organize the place for him or her. Sometimes they might recommend to get help from the police, if the situation is bad.

So make it clear, this is how it should work:
1. The family has a problem
2. Para-social worker gets information about that
3. Para-social worker can inform the chairman of the street and try to get needed services to the family with co-operation with him
4. If it is not enough, the chairman would inform the officers of the ward and wards social welfare assistants would take care of the situation
5. If even that is not enough, the case goes to the social welfare officers of the district

Now, NIHEP is present on the background through the whole process, to make sure it goes on and somebody is always actively helping the family until they get the services they are needing.  After that, NIHEP does still follow-ups to the family and makes sure, that there is no more problems appearing.

There is the system in Tanzania. Now we have explained it how it should be and how we are including ourselves in, when it doesn’t work. For us, it is important to know the people on the streets and their chairman. When we have started working in Butimba and Lwanhima wards, at first we have tried to meet as many families as we can and found out which are the most vulnerable ones. After that it has been easier for us do follow-ups and make sure, that people are getting the services they are needing and that families won’t stuck in the process which is not always operating how it should. For us, the goal is to help the people of the area to get information of the services they are needing and make them feel powerful enough to cope with their own same kind of problems in the future  - with the support of the network of family and the friends.

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. 

Parents' Saturday 29 July 2017

On 29 July 2017 we met with parents of the girls we have in “Wasiliana” project. We discussed a lot about girls and how we can cooperate to support them in order to help them to reach their future dreams.

From the parents and other visitors that were invited, we heard that they agree the girls have many challenges and the big risk of not reaching their future plans, for example some girls are getting pregnant in early age while they are still at school. So it is important to come together as a community to make sure that the girls are supported in all aspects of life.

Also the girls had prepared songs, acting and dances, and they performed for their parents and other visitors. After the programme we had a time to watch girls playing netball.

We would like to thank all the parents and other visitors like street chairmen of Lwanhima ward, nurse from Sahwa dispensary, school matron from Lwanhima secondary school, head teacher of Sahwa primary school and ward education officer of Lwanhima ward who were invited and were able to join us on parents’ Saturday. We would also like to thank Global Social Work Finland for supporting the event and offering sodas and peanuts for the participants.

 Amalath Ismail

The writer is a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology from Saint Augustine University of Tanzania (SAUT), currently volunteering with Ni Hekima Pekee Organization.

Together we are stronger

One of Ni Hekima Pekee’s (NIHEP) ways to operate is through parents support. The organization has gathered parents into peer groups. The groups have been formed according to their similar life situations; there are some groups for HIV-positive parents, some for those whose children have been supported with school material. In total NIHEP is operating with seven parents’ groups, two in Butimba ward and five in Lwanhima. Butimba has been NIHEP’s operational area from the year 2010 and the parents’ groups were started there in 2010. In Lwanhima, NIHEP has been operating since 2016 and the groups have been started within the last year.

The idea is to bring people together to share their challenges in general and find their own ways to enhance their financial situation. NIHEP has collected the members and guided the forming of each group and their plan, but the activity should rise from their own needs and experiences. This is why they have created their own business plans and are meeting in their own neighborhood with their own timetable. The groups are saving money in order to be able to start the chosen business, such as poultry or selling nutrient dense flour mix, in the future. 

 

NIHEP visits the groups regularly to see their achievements and to discuss any questions or challenges they are facing. Working with these parents needs a lot of effort and dedication. Many parents have struggled with everyday life for years and therefore have little energy to try to improve their situation. Both educational and financial support is needed in order to keep the groups going. When supporting parents the aim is also to give them more strength to be parents and prevent the social problems from being passed on to the next generation. NIHEP hopes that working in a group makes the parents strong enough to improve their own situation so that in the future they will be able to help other community members around them.

Ida Nyroos & Minna Varho

The writers are Master’s degree social work students from University of Turku in Finland and are currently doing their internship with Ni Hekima Pekee. 

From dreams to plans to actions

During the last few weeks we have been working with education advice in the girls’ group. There is no education advice in public schools’ curriculum so the students have little knowledge on the possibilities they have and the choices they need to make in order to proceed towards the profession they desire. 

We introduced the topic by drawing each one’s future dreams and sharing them together. The variety of different dream professions was very narrow due to little knowledge on career possibilities. The most common dreams were to become a teacher, nurse, doctor or tailor but there were a few girls mentioning other professions such as police, pilot, tourist guide or artist. Many of the girls had been inspired by someone they admire in their living environment, such as a mother or a teacher. Because of this, we decided to have an overview on the most common professions.

Next, we discussed the possible obstacles the girls might have on their way towards their dreams. These were mostly school-related. Many girls lack time or material for studying. Some have dropped out of school. Some don’t know which subjects to choose to reach their desired profession. There are also some challenges with the school environment. The distances are often long and many have to walk even five kilometers one way each schoolday. The schooldays are long and the schools may not have water, let alone meals. The class sizes can be even above hundred students and it’s difficult to get a teacher’s attention. 

 

In order to help the girls to also realize the value of their own actions and efforts, we then discussed their strengths and possible next steps towards their dream. This is where dreams develop into plans. Again, we saw their insecurities in speaking out and expressing their opinions. In this point, the girls mentioned the importance of studying hard, focusing on specific subjects, cooperation with fellow students and praying. These observations were on a rather general level, and thus we encouraged the girls to further think through their own personal strengths.

This topic needs more attention in the future, but we hope that after these sessions the girls have at least a bit better picture of the area of education and maybe some more ideas of the possible career options. At the moment we are conducting home visits with the girls who have dropped out of school to support them to create and reach their individual future plan.

Ida Nyroos & Minna Varho

The writers are Master’s degree social work students from University of Turku in Finland and are currently doing their internship with Ni Hekima Pekee.

Mtoto Afrika – Girls’ thoughts on children’s rights

June 16^th is known as the International Day of the African Child (Siku ya mtoto wa Afrika). It’s a remembrance day of the thousands of students who participated the Soweto uprising in 1976 and defended their right to have good education in their native language. That day, hundreds of demonstrators were killed by the police and this led to more protests and deaths during the following weeks. Since 1991 the day has been celebrated for raising awareness of the condition of life of the African children and the importance of education.

In the girls’ group we approached the same themes. We told them about the day and asked them to think about children’s rights and responsibilities. We also asked them to draw or write down both what is positive and negative in their living environment when it comes to children’s position in their community.

This led to fine observations and interesting discussion. They see a lot of good and valuable qualities in their community such as love, communality, respect of the elderly, family and home. The girls appreciate education and they are happy that nowadays girls are also allowed to schools. However, they pointed out many defects too. They see neglection and even child abuse, lack of food and shortage of other basic needs. Perhaps one of the most important remarks is gender inequality. Girls are given more household duties such as cooking, cleaning, childcare and collecting firewood and water. This leaves them with little free time and energy to study. Boys are still prioritized when it comes to education.

Girls are aware that children have the right to education, quality food, home, clothes, playing and praying and the right to be heard. Girls would like to have more time to meet friends and rest. This led us to think about the balance of rights and responsibilities and to seek ways to better communicate with parents. In girls’ opinion, first the responsibilities have to be taken care of and the negotiation has to be well timed and grounded.

It was great hear the girls’ own opinions and ideas about the topic. Due to gender inequality the girls are usually quite unconfident to speak out and share. They need to get the experiences of being heard, respected and allowed to have opinions.

Minna Varho & Ida Nyroos

The writers are Master’s degree social work students from University of Turku in Finland and are currently doing their internship with Ni Hekima Pekee.

Greetings from Ni Hekima Pekee.

Our work of serving children, families and parents who are in need has been going well  in Mwanza . With generous support from our supporters made our lovely work to move forwards, reaching more of our  beneficiaries,home visits, school visits and parent meetings are some of ways of interacting our beneficiaries. NIHEP acknowledge the big role  of local and abroad student  volunteers on strengthen NIHEP by implementing our daily activities, families are encouraged and empowered on children  nurturing, income generation activities. Children are inspired  and motivated during home and school visits. Special thanks to Mwembe Association and its partners , SKKB (Joline Roetman) and Mwanza Municipal
.

Our volunteers ( Samira, Julia and Geturuda) during home visit, meeting children and their parent, motivating and inspiring the children on academic issue