NEWS
OBITUARY – Louise Jilek-Aall
Christmas Greetings and thanks to all our friends from Provision Charitable Foundation
Nancy and I are so appreciative of your support of the Provision Charitable Foundation’s work in Tanzania. It’s hard to believe it has been more than 13 years since we first went to Tanzania. Your engagement, both spiritual, emotional, and financial, has been critical in making significant quality life changes for so many. Without you, this could never have happened.
Provision is providing rice and maize for families at several locations in Tanzania as this is a time of year between harvests that there is a real struggle for food. Covid and lack of rain have made food more costly and poor harvests have directly reduced harvests for the subsistence farmers. Through the generosity of a donor, we are able to provide substantial help both to families and schools.
In this picture rice has been delivered to the school and children are given bags of rice to take home for their families.
Provision is beginning to advocate more actively for women and children through the Tanzanian legal system. The human rights watch submitted a report on March 25, 2021, on the situation in Tanzania detailing various human rights issues, including discrimination against women and girls. As a first step, we are supporting a woman, Oliver, through law school.
The new president, Samia Hassan, now the only female head of state in Africa, is beginning to address human rights issues.
Abuses and Discrimination Against Girls and Women
During its second UPR cycle, Tanzania accepted recommendations to fight discrimination against women and girls, including in access to education (e.g. 134.12, 134.40, 134.117). Tanzania prohibits pregnant girls, teenage mothers, and girls forced to marry from completing primary and secondary education in public schools, affecting a large number of adolescent girls.[21] The expulsion of pregnant students from public schools is permitted under Tanzania’s education regulations.[22] Schools regularly conduct pregnancy tests and expel students found to be pregnant. Estimates show that between 5,500 to 8,000 girls could be affected on annual basis.[23]
On June 22, 2017, the late President John Magufuli stated, “As long as I’m president, no pregnant students will be allowed to return to school.” In January 2018, police in Tandahimba district, Mtwara region, arrested five girls between ages 16 and 19 for being pregnant, following orders from the district’s commissioner.[24] In February 2020 Dodoma District Commissioner Patrobas Katambi ordered mandatory pregnancy testing of all schoolgirls every three months, and stated that the names of girls identified as pregnant would be publicly announced after compulsory testing. He also ordered government officials to report cases to the police.[25]
News report from The Citizen newspaper June 9th 2021, Dar es Salaam.
At the age of 24 years, Stefano Kileo is already a force to reckon with in as far as beekeeping is concerned.
He developed the love for beekeeping even before graduating with a Bachelor of Science in Animal Science Degree from Sokoine University of Agriculture (Sua) in 2019. Upon graduating, he had to hit the ground running in an effort to utilize his university education to transform beekeeping into a viable commercial project. So even as he tried to venture into poultry farming at one point while still studying, his aim was to earn an income to sustain himself.
But after getting more knowledge on commercial beekeeping from experienced people in the field, he had no time to waste.
Two years down the lane, he has a lot to tell regarding how the business has progressed.
He says beekeeping was among the sub-sectors that have vast opportunities, but many farmers have not yet decided to transform it into commercial size.
Educating girls is a key to many issues facing our world and Provision is continuing our focus in this area. If you would like to assist with our advocacy for women's and children’s rights in Tanzania please sign into Canada Helps, locate Provision Charitable Foundation and donate toward the costs of sending Oliver, a young woman passionate about the rights of women and children, to law school in Tanzania.
Read an interesting article "Vanessa Nakate: How Educating Girls Will Help Combat the Climate Crisis"