Tanzania Feminist Initiative

Patriarchy system and gendered norms are among the causes that make fewer girls successful reach higher education. In the world where these girls are faced with challenges all what they need is a leadership figure who can help them reach their potential and grow that power within them.

The geographical proximity, time and missed opportunities and even Covid-19 makes it hard for the girls to meet and hear from the successful women who can motivate and guideline to empower the young girls aged 21-30 to reach their highest potential.

The mentor and mentee app will provide a platform where the will meet the successful women leaders in different field according to what they aspire to be for example  Engineers, doctors, member of parliaments, influencer, musician, business owners and  artists also peer to peer mentorship. They will have one on one  chat, video calls  in sharing challenges and solutions to revamp. 

Missing guidelines that make fewer girls fail in their career that is the gap Tanzania Feminist Initiative wants to solve, either the girls do not get the right people to guide them or they completely miss the guideline opportunity.  Every girl is born with the power within them but it takes a leader or a potential peer to make her realize her power within and work hard on it. 

Mentorship program is a new term in Tanzania, and mostly relating it to be being a western culture but the benefit that comes from it is not a blind eye. I can testify even Tanzania Feminist Initiative as an organization is a product of Mentorship from strong women. The girls need a helping hand to lead them in the right path, they need women and peers who have also passed through the same challenges to learn from, they need a supportive system and that is what we will create because we believe in the fight to eliminate patriarchy we need a strong movement.

Mentor and mentee application will be available in the apple and android store and it will be free of charge for all users. The application will provide a platform of messaging and video call and audio messaging. It will allow users who are the mentors and mentee to create accounts in order to log in. Tanzania Feminist Initiative will work to find mentors from different fields of work and area who will be women who understand the Tanzania context. Also it will filter the applicants who want to get mentors through nationality, that is having a valid Tanzania passport, willingness to be in the journey of success also a eye catching resume. Survey will be conducted in  monitoring the progress of the program and tackling different challenges that come on the way. Rules of the platform will be formed. Frequent online forum meetings with the girls for sisterhood and peer to peer mentorship.

 A user-friendly interface mobile software with the best layout will be created by the team of  four girls who are good in coding, and the application will be matching the current world of digitization. JavaScript and React  Nativewill be used because that offers the best documentation and community support.

The girls aged 21-30 is our target population because at this age most girls are in higher learning institution, graduates and youthful to tackle challenges; the young girls who are ready to take up the world and some have stayed out of the job market for a long time and have given up in life. It is also at this age where the girl beauty is strongly portrayed and that comes with a lot of temptations apart from that they feel the pinch of patriarchy in higher education through  sex for grades, sex for job. Tanzania Feminist Initiative will not only put all these different challenge in one basket but will try to understand each any everyone's problem differently and assign the best mentor to help her also provide a platform for the peer to peer mentorship. 

First and foremost a baseline survey will be conducted to understand clearly the magnitude and how the girls wants the mentor and mentee app to serve them apart from what will be laid forward based on the Binti jasirika project that was conducted in 2018-2020 evaluation  that laid a foundation to the need of mentor and mentee application because in the process of raising awareness on gender based violence we realized that the girls need more that just being aware, they have dreams they have goals but fear and patriarchy system plus the gendered norms have kept them in a confined places and that is what we are mostly trying to tackle: the power within. Talking to your fellow woman who has succeed in the field which you also strive is an eye opener for your success, the mentor-mentee application will provide a safe space for the girls to talk all issues that affect them towards their journey.

The mentor mentee app will have an opportunity window where the different opportunities that arises either scholarships, fellowships, forums and meetings will be posted for the girls to take up so that they do not miss out and help them along the way. Also online economic empowerment seminars to take up business based on their passion.

It's the Tanzania girls and women who live in a patriarchy system, like a race day by day women give up on the way because of that system because of psychological, physical, sexual and even economical violence. The few who make it talk of the support they had in their journey and that is what mentor-mentee app wants to create a support system, a sisterhood of looking up for each other in the fight for patriarchy system. 

This idea has been growing within us as an organization after the implementation of Binti Jasirika project that trained trainers on raised awareness on gender based violence to girls in Dar es salaam region. During the evaluation stage we saw the need of the mentor-mentee program, despite that we created a feminist club but the girls needed a mentor to help them with the gender based violence agenda. We have been developing this on paper since as appropasal and so SOLVE came at the right time and the right moment when this application is needed the most by the young girls because of Covid 19 that has locked them more with the perpetrators of violence.

Being that  innovative is not only a technical related word , we believe that the solution will not only bring the young girls with successful women but also the peer to peer mentorship so that they all work towards one goal of empowering an African woman.

The economic segment will empower the girls to learn on how they can empower themselves economically through online training and exposing opportunities that are present while giving them an helping hand in the application process.

In one year the solution will affect 350 girls in one year and in five years the solution will affect 2500 girls in Tanzania.

1. The number of girls who have been economically empowered

2. The number of stakeholders who have been able to support the movement

3. The number of girls who have secured different online opportunities 

4. The number of girls registered in the platform and actively participating

They are four people working. That includes the following:-

1.Martha Mwammale- Founder and Executive Director

2. Suzana Masele- Administrative Officer

3. Lulu Nyika- Finance officer

4. Moses Mwitete- Lawyer and Project officer

5. Anna Swilla- Communication and project officer

My all team members posses a bachelors degree in the specific field they are working on with not less than two years work experience; apart from that training has been part and parcel in our skills development without forgetting team work in fulfillment of our duties. My team are all Tanzanians, and they understand the context and the environment they serve.

Though in the mobile application development we will employ new four members who are girls in technology so that they help in the coding process.

The leadership of the project is all inclusive, non discriminatory and empowering the female gender being that was the essence of Tanzania Feminist Initiative from the start, without forgetting the vulnerable groups

SOLVE will put a smile to hundreds of young girls in my country and East Africa at large, it will help a lot of young girl economically so that they know the are not alone in the struggle against patriarchy as a system. SOLVE will link the supportive system of peer to peer and mentor and mentee platform  that the young girls need.

The finance to implement the idea so that it help the young girls to develop economically and emotionally.

SOLVE- so that we get the important tools to advance and make this a reality.

The government of Tanzania- so that the see the need to empower more young girls.

The mentorship program will start from the school level and so nurture the young girls from the young age and grow with the power within. Education should go along with innovation.