By Deogratius Koyanga, Shinyanga
The Women in Law and Development
in Africa (WiLDAF) has conducted capacity-building training for the staff and
management of Rafiki SDO in Shinyanga on how to incorporate gender issues into
the organization's programs and overall structure.
These training sessions are part
of a project funded by the Swedish International Development Agency (Sida)
through Save the Children-Tanzania. The project aims to enhance the capacity of
civil society organizations, strengthen institutional systems, and amplify the
voices of children to discuss, self-manage, and demand their fundamental
rights. The project is implemented in collaboration with WiLDAF, RAFIKI SDO,
and five other partners.
Speaking at the training, Acting
Executive Director of RAFIKI SDO, Tangi Clement, expressed gratitude to WiLDAF
for providing gender experts to impart this knowledge. She emphasized that the
training has opened their eyes to how they address gender issues as an
institution and how the organization's programs target gender-related
challenges in the community, especially among project beneficiaries.
"We are very grateful to
WiLDAF for providing us with a Gender specialist for this session. We, as
RAFIKI SDO, are still learning in the area of Gender, and this is a crucial
opportunity that we have received. We will ensure to implement what we have
learned, including extending this knowledge to other employees who did not
participate and our stakeholders such as district councils for further
awareness," said Tangi.
She added that during the
workshop, they agreed that there is a need for a review of internal policies
and human resources guidelines to create an enabling environment for pregnant women
employees to have rest periods and dedicated spaces.
Additionally, they proposed that
the review of the Gender policy should align with the inclusion of Gender
Equality and Justice issues for people with disabilities and breastfeeding
mothers, ensuring they receive full support while engaged in the organization's
activities. "This will require policy changes, submission to management and
the board for their approval, but it's a positive thing, and we believe they
will agree," she added.
They also outlined a strategy to
prioritize advocacy in district councils to allocate a gender Responsive Budget.
This would enable girls to study and stay safe both within and outside of
school, providing lunch meals at schools to reduce absenteeism and early
pregnancies, constructing dormitories, and facilitating secondary school girls
to access sanitary towels.
WiLDAF facilitator, Deogratius
Temba, expressed the organization's hope that significant institutional changes
would occur after the training. He highlighted the participants' commitment to
putting effort into institutional changes so that everything within the
organization reflects a gender perspective.
He added that the training led
participants to agree on a review of RAFIKI SDO's gender policy for 2022 and
its Strategic Plan (2020-2024) to focus on gender equality and allocate an
internal budget to address gender-related challenges.
Eliud Mtalemwa, the Program
Manager for Rafiki SDO in the Geita region, stated that the training helped the
organization see itself more positively, recognizing how it manages gender
issues and identifying gaps. He stressed the need to establish gender
guidelines to govern and enforce gender-related decisions within the
organization. "We have observed that women participate in our activities
and decision-making positions, but we lack a guiding document that obliges us
by numbers, specifying how many women should be in those positions. With the
knowledge we have gained here, we will improve by revisiting our operational
tools," said Mtalemwa.
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