Women In Mining Leadership Development; The story So far (2): The Incentive for Organizing.

 Women Group meeting  In Londoni Singida

Marietha addressing the group

Women come together for different reasons, in most cases in Tanzania, women organize through self help groups,  for supporting each other financially. Ready cash in form of merry-go-round is  one of the  incentive to organize. In rare cases, women self organize for discussing issues that affect women such as domestic violence, health, services, policy, laws etc. After organizing for financial support, in most cases the groups formalizes into Serving And Credit Schemes. The formalization   lives behind women who cannot “formally” meet the criteria for Credit, and sometimes “uneducated” as it becomes sophisticated with systems and rules. The spirit of organizing goes down and replaced by money and power, with technical people coming in.

In case of Singida where eight women participated in the Leadership Development course organized by HakiMadini, women have found a new incentive for organizing. At first, they started as a servings and credit group, it started formalizing and they learned that most women were left behind. One woman named Marietha re-organized the group and facilitated women in identifying the reason for coming together apart from money. They identified violence against women in mining areas as a major challenge that hinders them to participate fully in economic activities. “It comes in different forms, women are facing domestic violence in their homes, and sexual harassment in public and physical and emotional violence while at work in mining sites  Its like we do not have a safe place to be. There is no respect for women because there is no defined values as community. Most people are migrants and everybody is here temporarily…” Says Marietha. That is a reason why women came together to prevent and respond to women human rights abuses in the mining area of Londoni and Sambaru in Singida.

Eleven women from the initial group formed and raised an issue, that they needed a new incentive. They started mobilizing other women, mostly by identifying those who have faced violence. They helped other women see the connection between violence and women poverty by pointing out specific examples. Then they invited them to join their monthly discussion on state of violence in mining area and strategies for prevention and response. In these meetings women have chance to share stories and experiences and look at violence against women in new perspective. They intend to grow together as a group, supporting each other emotionally while the Servings and credit schemes support those who need money for their business. 

It’s a process and it takes small steps!