AfricAid

AfricAid supports mentoring programs that help secondary school girls in Tanzania build the soft skills - confidence, resilience, leadership - they need to achieve their goals in academics and in life. These programs have been remarkably successful in northern Tanzania where they have operated for the last decade, graduating girls from secondary school at higher rates, with higher test scores, and with exponentially lower rates of pregnancy than are experienced by Tanzanian girls in general. But, could these programs work in other parts of Tanzania? What results might third party researchers find when comparing the programs we support to other programs? Or even in comparing outcomes between girls who are in these mentoring programs to girls who are not, in the same school environment?  Could these programs see similar success across the border in other cultures and contexts? Should we receive Elevate Prize funding, we would have the ability to test our programs and to understand what it is about this programming that has made it so successful - and to pilot expansion to see whether we can apply success elsewhere and help more girls in more places realize and act on their true potential.

I joined AfricAid one year ago, as the organization split into two: AfricAid, and GLAMI (Girls Livelihood and Mentorship Initiative, formerly AfricAid Tanzania). While we still maintain the functions we held when we were a single organization, with the US side responsible for fundraising and awareness building and the Tanzania side responsible for program design and implementation, I want AfricAid to be more than a funder. I want AfricAid to build on the learnings we have collected since implementing mentoring programming in Tanzania a decade ago and work with our local partner to make mentoring a regular feature of girls' empowerment programs globally. Personally, I am here because it is unfair and fundamentally wrong that girls are treated differently, as "less than" in so many cultures. Being born a girl in Tanzania and too many other countries means that your life story is written for you, before you ever become who you are meant to be. Mentoring programs we support are rewriting that narrative and giving girls the skills and tools to create their own life story - and parental and community attitudes are changing as a result. We must take our learnings to more places, to help more girls.

Only 39 percent of girls in Tanzania are lucky enough to attend school. Those who do face significant financial, cultural, and environmental challenges that can undermine their ability to make the most of their secondary school opportunity, resulting too often in dropout. Options in life become extremely limited for a girl without an education. 

But education is one piece of the equation. To succeed in an environment where odds are against her, a girl also needs a role model that she can trust, who can show her her worth, and her potential. 

AfricAid supports locally-led, extracurricular mentoring programs for secondary school girls ages 13-21 in northern Tanzania through our local partner, GLAMI (Girls Livelihood and Mentorship Initiative; formerly AfricAid Tanzania). These programs are long-term, high-touch opportunities for girls to develop deep, lasting bonds with university educated Tanzanian women mentors – the majority of whom are program alumnae themselves. More than 11,500 girls have participated in this programming in the last decade. Girls in this program graduate with higher test scores and experience exponentially lower rates of pregnancy (2% vs 57% nationally), and 97% of girls graduating secondary school continue to tertiary education. 

Mentoring girls works, and these programs are proof.

The word "mentor" can mean many things to many people. Over the last decade, we have worked to define mentoring and put it into practice, with carefully designed program curriculum that gives caring, university educated adult Tanzanian women the tools to transfer their knowledge and their confidence to girls who might not have any type of female role model in their life. Mentors in the programs we support play a role that nobody else can; they are confidantes, sisters, and friends who can freely share experiences and information without another power dynamic at play - as one might find between a teacher and student or a parent and child. What makes the work we support so unique is the simplicity of its consistency: the same mentor meets with the same group of girls throughout the life of this program. This builds trust, it builds camaraderie and sisterhood between mentors and between the girls in each mentoring class. Because of this, relationships that are developed tend to last long beyond the duration of this programming, providing girls with a network of support as they face transitions and future challenges. The disruption and the uniqueness lie in the longevity of these programs.

In conversations with alumnae, there is a consistent theme: mentoring programs help girls find their voice. Girls who describe themselves as once being shy have become entrepreneurs, community leaders, managers, business owners and more. They are achieving dreams they didn't even know they had before this programming. 

The benefits of mentoring extend even beyond the girls. In communities where these programs operate, we have measured shifting attitudes about the worth, potential, and capability of girls and women. Alumnae report understanding their health needs, they report higher levels of resilience, and report higher levels of confidence and an ability to solve problems.

The short term impact sees girls achieve educational milestones. Long term, girls achieve happier, healthier lives of their own making. For each additional year of secondary school a girl completes, her earning potential increases by up to 25%. Girls with secondary schooling are up to 6 times less likely to marry as children. Increasing the number of women with a secondary education by 1% can raise a county’s annual per capita economic growth by 0.37%. These programs show that girls' stories don't have to be pre-written; educated, empowered girls are now writing their own stories.