Ugandan Girls Empowering Girls in Tanzania

Aim

Three impressive teenagers from Uganda want to use their skills as changemakers to empower rural and slum-based girls in Tanzania

It is amazing how much good a single youth can do when talking and empowering another youth.  Nancy Lakot, pictured above, has been working with girls in village areas since she was 15 years old and realised for herself that the lives of women can be varied and exciting, when she joined the Butterfly Project, which trains young social entrepreneurs, in Uganda in 2011.

Nancy is one of three girls who wish to make the trip across country boundaries to talk to girls in Tanzania, both in slum and rural areas, but also to meet youth policy developers for the government of Tanzania, to show what young people from Uganda are already achieving, following a recent invitation from a senior official, who is going to host all three in Dar es Salaam,

Nancy is now 19 years old and she has the following aspirations for the Tanzanian trip:

My project uses Music, Dance and Drama to empower young girls in the community to stand up for themselves for what they feel is right and create awareness about HIV/AIDS.  These are some of the themes I use:

1. Exploring how girls can create change in a community
2. Building up the confidence of girls
3. The equality for girls and boys
4. Fighting early pregnancy of young girls
5. Reducing the rate of early forced marriage

In many countries, women are not provided with the privilege to go to school, most especially women from rural areas where they are forced into early marriage. Girls empowerment is important to me because girls should have the same rights as boys and they can achieve this by having the confidence to stand up for themselves.

 I want to empower women and girls to work and develop skills that allow them to find their way out of poverty on their own.  This will create a change in their ability to act independently and help them build their personal experience through using their own income generated from what they do.   Lastly I have seen many girls suffering from HIV, because they were never informed about the risks, because they were so young.  I'd like to see an end to early marriage and these risks.

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Eunice Namugerwa is 20 and is pursuing a Bachelor of Real Estate Business at Makerere University, She joined the Butterfly Project in 2009 and lived then in one of Uganda’s largest slums, Kisenyi. This is an area faced with problems like child abuse, poor sanitation, child labour, prostitution, early pregnancies, drug abuse, and others.  This is Eunice's statement:

I grew up facing many challenges and seeing many young girls going through difficulties, not having a voice, denied education, being underlooked and seen as if they are not important and this made me to develop a big passion for girl empowerment, I realized there was a need for people to change people’s perception towards girls and show them that we are as important as boys and can create a big difference in this world.

I have a lot of interest in Music and I was awarded a scholarship at Kampala music school where I have been able to attain skills so started up a music project, I believe music can communicate to people.  we sing, dance and act about the problems and also provide solutions to them, as we perform around the different communities.

A few years ago I started up a chicken farm in order to sustain my project. Currently am working  on a vocational training program for girls who have dropped out of school and women who weren't given a chance to study and are now jobless to receive training in areas they are interested in and after they can start to work and put food on the table and also sustain their families.

I have gained a lot ever since I joined the Butterfly Project; I was able to go back to school after almost a year absent, have been able to work on my projects in areas that am interested in, I participated in a youth Ugandan competition and I became one of the winners. I was able to speak at a TEDx event. They introduced me to the music school where I have attained many skills.

What makes me standout is that I have a lot of passion for change, girl empowerment, and I not only focus on just my wellbeing but everyone's.

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Amito Judith Linda is a 19 year old change maker looking to create a difference in the world.

She is a law student at Makerere University in Uganda.  She runs our project in rural Koro called the Girls' Hub that specialises in Girl Empowermentand she has developed a number of incredible and unique initiatives to empower the girls living in this area, led by a methodology which enables them to help themselves and expand their group organically.

It had always been her passion to work with girls in rural areas to develop themselves in order to become the best version of themselves.

Currently the Girls' Hub is looking at organising a fundraiser dinner that will contribute to the "keep a girl in school campaign" which is also a central theme of the project. The campaign is raising the awareness nationally and internationally the problem of lack of sanitary towels in rural areas, which deprives so many girls of their deserved schooling.

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The three girls have been invited to Tanzania because of their work as social entrepreneurs in the Butterfly Project and also as part of the leading team in Ashoka Youth venture Alumni group.  Together they have developed a provisional itinerary for their trip:

The objectives of the trip are as follows:

• To inspire young people to be changemakers
• Comparing the social life of people in Tanzania with that of Uganda.
• To show that young people in Uganda are leaders and not followers and to demonstrate that they can do the something as us.
• Talk to young people about starting their own projects (using a PowerPoint presentation).
• To help young people feel differently about their future, develop a framework for them to develop their ideas.
• To develop the confidence our these three special young people

Other than just meeting young people, the girls will introduce them to some of the empowering activities that take place with the Butterfly Project, from inspiring films to sports, from board games to drama, from ICT to Vision 4 Change, a training programme that helps children develop their own social projects.

In the second part of the travel, they will be hosted at Jack Cecup School in Lusaka, which is a school with a track record for promoting gifted and talented children living in disadvantaged areas.

The budget of £1500 goes a long way (Costs in Ugandan shillings):

We have been generous on the exchange rate in the current financial climate and allowed for 4,300 Ugandan shillings to the £1.  All passports have been acquired now and the girls have much of their travel equipment.

This project closed unsuccessfully on 12th August 2016