Women in Mining Leadership Development: The Story so far: (1)

Initiated in the past eighteen months, Women leadership Fellowship Course took place on   Arusha and Singida. The course was organized by HakiMadini, through Gender and Mining program, and it brought together a total of 35 women from five regions of Tanzania, namely Arusha, Mwanza, Manyara, Singida and Tanga. They are women activists engaging directly and indirectly in mining and who are affected by  exclusion within the sector.

The course focused on strengthening their personal values as women leaders and facilitating their leadership skills in the context movement building. Their activism spirit, influence within the communities they come from and engagement in the mining sector will bring about the change and shifts in the society. They are bringing a new form of leadership which depends mainly on values, accountability, responsibility and facilitation while responding to the traditional ways of leadership which focuses on the position and power. The course is a landmark for the community based movement led by women in the mining sector. It helps women to achieve the right attitude for leadership in learning societies, learn to face hardship and grow through adversity, courage, patience, dedication, perseverance.

Women in mining sector and in mining areas encounter challenges everyday. Apart from sharing their communities’struggles over limited resources like water, land or jobs, many systematically face discrimination simply by virtue of being female. This includes physical and sexual violence, being kept out of school, disproportionate vulnerability to HIV infection and lack of access to property and other rights.

HakiMadini believes that women in mining communities possess the collective power to change their lives, their communities and the world we live in. Just as they face daily challenges, they are continually developing innovative, effective ways to improve their lives. By bringing together their wisdom and creativity, women are leading change. HakiMadini is supporting these women   by empowering them to acquire skills and to enable them to provide leadership on the issues that concern them. It offers engaging and dynamic activities to motivate and enable women to believe in their abilities to catalyse change and to mobilise others to do the same. It is a flexible tool for learning and exploring issues from human rights and violence against women to body image, self-esteem and developing leadership skills.