Nurturing Minds and SEGA

I am applying for this prize because our work is making a difference in girls’ lives in escaping exploitation and poverty and more progress can be made through expansion of our programs.   For the past 12 years, we have taken a holistic approach to removing societal and financial barriers for marginalized girls to reach their full potential and realize their dreams.

Currently, SEGA educates 1,200 vulnerable girls each year, promoting leadership and helping raise girls’ voices in their communities and beyond. The SEGA Girls’ School educates 280 girls in a safe, boarding environment, most on full scholarship; the SEGA Alumni program provides scholarships and regular in-person supportive meetings with 217 graduates attending tertiary education programs; and the SEGA Modern Girl program, operated by SEGA School graduates, provides girls’ rights and life skills, entrepreneurship, and financial literacy education to 900 girls twice per week for one year.

Prize funds would be used to develop a vocational training program on the campus of the SEGA Girls’ School; a business development fund providing skills and access to capital for graduates developing their own businesses; and a tourism center where the girls can market services and products to generate income.

I had been living in Tanzania for almost 10 years while working for a large NGO and later as a consultant. My work was focused in the area of girls’ education where I met and interviewed girls and women about issues affecting their lives. So often I would see girls working in people’s homes as house-girls and was moved by how hard they worked, how much responsibility they had at such a young age, and how, in many cases, school was simply out of reach. I saw how their childhoods as well as their opportunities for reaching their full potential were cut short due to such a heavy burden of work. I met girls who would do anything to get an education, and this often meant putting themselves in risky and unpleasant situations—exchanging sex for transport or a place to stay—so they could attend secondary school. This really shocked me. I decided that I wanted to do something that could help girls have more autonomy in their lives and avoid those situations. I started a secondary school in 2008 that has expanded to other programs that help girls overcome gender and financial barriers to self-sufficiency.

Tanzanian girls face numerous financial and social challenges such as barriers to quality formal education, especially at secondary level and beyond. Tanzania has one of the lowest secondary school enrollment rates and one of the highest dropout rates for girls mainly due to pregnancy and early marriage. Almost 37% of girls (Girls Not Brides) marry before the age of 18, while only 5% of boys the same age marry. Thousands of adolescent girls drop out because of pregnancy, at least 6,475 in 2020 according to Tanzania’s prime minister. The government bans pregnant girls from attending public school or returning to school once they’ve had a baby.

SEGA created programs that address the needs of vulnerable Tanzanian girls at different stages of their lives, anchored around the SEGA Girls’ Secondary School, a boarding school serving 280 girls each year with a holistic curriculum in a safe environment. The School provides Academic, Entrepreneurial, and LifeSkills education to girls aged 13-17, equipping them with a foundation to live free from poverty and exploitation. SEGA operates a scholarship program for its secondary school graduates to continue their education, and a community outreach program that expands SEGA’s life skills and empowerment program to other communities.

Through its programs, anchored around its girls’ secondary school and graduate programs which extend deep into rural communities, SEGA is developing a movement of financially literate, educated, and empowered girls who are aware of their rights and will transform their society.

The SEGA School offers a high-quality, holistic education on a beautiful, well-resourced campus to the country’s poorest people, a tangible example of a person’s right to quality education, and unique in Tanzania. One key emphasis in all of SEGA’s programs is informing participants of their rights as girls and women. The concept of teaching girls about their intrinsic rights and helping them learn to communicate assertively is one of the building blocks towards systemic change in Tanzanian society. SEGA School’s programs provide opportunities to role-play, practice communication skills, and engage in leadership activities. As they become aware of the gender dynamics impacting every aspect of their lives, they become equipped to respond to challenges they face as young women. Once equipped, SEGA Girls’ School graduates are then trained to work with groups of girls in their home communities to spread awareness and skills, empowering others.

SEGA’s long term goals are to empower girls to transform their society, and decrease Tanzania’s adolescent pregnancy and early marriage rates. SEGA nurtures each girl toward being an empowered young woman, capable of planning and shaping her own future. Through the SEGA School, we provide girls with a safe, supportive environment to tackle myriad societal issues affecting their lives. SEGA provides a holistic education that encompasses all areas of her life – academics, lifeskills, entrepreneurship training and career development, and environmental sustainability. The majority of SEGA students were at high risk of dropping out of school but are bright and motivated. Half of the girls are orphans and most come from families too poor to pay the school fees necessary for them to enter secondary school. SEGA is ranked in the top 7% of schools in Tanzania in its size category, 100% of 2020 graduates are continuing onto higher education, and the majority of graduates delay marriage/pregnancy giving them the ability to complete their education and earn income. Graduates of the SEGA Girls’ School are now leading social change in their own communities, as they mentor and educate other girls about their rights, and encourage them to stay on track.

Currently, SEGA is directly serving 1,750 vulnerable girls, educating, promoting leadership and helping raise girls’ voices in their communities and beyond. This year the SEGA Girls’ Secondary School educates 276 girls annually in a safe, boarding environment, most on full scholarship; the SEGA Post Form IV program provides continuing education scholarships and regular in-person supportive meetings with 217 graduates attending tertiary education programs this year; and the SEGA Modern Girl program, operated by SEGA School graduates, provides girls’ rights and life skills, entrepreneurship, and financial literacy education to an average of 966 girls twice per week throughout the year; with 38 SEGA and Modern Girl graduates serving as mentors and receiving a stipend. In addition, Modern Girl maintains an alumni forum that brings together 250 girls over the year.

In 2022, SEGA will directly serve 2,000 girls and women. School enrollment is expected to be 280. The Continuing Education program will increase by 58 students. The Modern Girl program will increase to serve 1100+ girls and 300 in the alumni forum. We will pilot a Business Development Fund to provide training and access to capital for graduates developing their own businesses that will serve 30 young women.

SEGA’s mission is to educate and equip bright vulnerable Tanzanian girls with academic, leadership, and business skills to unleash their individual talents and reach their full potential; to ultimately improve the quality of life for vulnerable girls. SEGA’s work contributes to SDG Goal #4, “Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.”

To ensure quality and integrity of its work, SEGA uses a monitoring and evaluation plan to measure mission adherence and progress against targets. Results are reported annually in an organizational Report Card. Examples of key indicators SEGA uses include:

• Short/immediate term “process/activity” indicators (collected on on-going basis) – Number of girls enrolled in SEGA programs and attendance; Accomplishment of planned activities (field trips, community outreach, mentor programs, scholarships, entrepreneurship trainings, etc.).
• Results over the intermediate term (collected annually) – Academic performance, Transition and retention within the Secondary School, Modern Girl Program, and Scholarship Program; Self-reported changes in confidence, girls’ rights awareness, etc.; and proficiency in English, Computers.
• Long-term impacts (collected every five years from 2018) – Income or standard of living; Age at first child-bearing; Examples of program graduates exercising their voice in the community; and participation in continuing higher education programs.

SEGA’s education programs aim ultimately to improve the quality of life for vulnerable girls.  While SEGA provides quality formal secondary, and tertiary (through scholarships) education and non-formal life and technical skills-building (within the SEGA School and Modern Girl programs) that significantly expand girls’ opportunities; societal barriers to improving their quality of life remain. Major barriers are

1) limited formal employment opportunities within Tanzania;

2) extreme forms of sexual harassment at all levels of society and employment which preclude young women from fairly competing in the jobs market; and

3) lack of access to affordable credit.

Over the coming year, SEGA will prepare its program graduates to create self-employment opportunities and operate their own businesses to help them reduce dependence on formal jobs and vulnerability to workplace sexual harassment. SEGA will provide access to capital through a revolving loan fund, coupled with a technical training grants program for business owners in skills areas of their choice. We will also lay the foundation for establishing a vocational training program on the campus of the SEGA Girls Secondary School; and begin research and planning for developing a tourism center where entrepreneurial graduates can harness the earning power of Tanzania’s tourism industry.

Becoming an Elevate Prize winner will generate significant financial resources and expanded programmatic impacts. With the technical expertise offered by Elevate to build media campaigns, SEGA in Tanzania will expand its visibility and develop and access platforms to broadcast the voice of SEGA girls to all corners of the country and through national media outlets centered in major cities. SEGA girls already awakened and organized under the Modern Girl program, and located deep in rural areas will be linked with rural and urban media outlets in TZ, East Africa and beyond, to stimulate grassroots movements to transform gender norms and overcome sexual exploitation and harassment at all levels of society, so prevalent currently. This in turn will inspire other service providers to learn from SEGA’s work and incorporate its program elements into standard education programs in Tanzania and Africa, branding SEGA as a model. SEGA will become an attractive partner of choice for larger service providers and donors aiming to reach larger numbers of beneficiaries, enhancing SEGA’s sustainability and impact. Within the US, the expertise from Elevate will help Nurturing Minds increase recognition of our brand, expand social media presence, and reach a young generation of new fans and supporters.   

Nurturing Minds (NM) and SEGA work together as two independent organizations partnered around common goals for improving quality of life for vulnerable Tanzanian girls. The successful partnership involving groups of people from vastly different cultures is possible through mutual respect and shared values of diversity, equity, and inclusivity. At SEGA, the leadership teams involve individuals from both Islamic and Christian backgrounds and from different groups/tribes. Four women and 4 men serve in leadership positions.

Nurturing Minds directors and advisors is made up of 35 Americans, 5 Tanzanians, and 4 members from 3 other countries including 38 women and 6 men, illustrating our commitment to diversity. To ensure we continue to embrace these values and further deepen our commitment, we have formed a Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (JEDI) task force. JEDI has developed goals to educate all NM members on JEDI principles and topics; ensure a diverse and inclusive organizational structure and culture; ensure respectful communications protecting the dignity of the Tanzanian girls we serve; and reinforce equity within the NM-SEGA partnership. NM embarked on this initiative in 2021, has budgeted resources to support it, and aims to begin implementing its training program in early 2022.

A Bachelor’s in Sociology and a Master’s in international administration engendered in me a mindset of respect and interest in different cultural paradigms, which laid a foundation for developing SEGA. After my Master’s, I spent 12 years in East Africa working in girls’ education, girls’ rights, and community development which made me aware of the situation Tanzanian girls faced and helped me develop relationships with Tanzanians positioned to help tackle these issues. Similarly, my own cultural and socio-economic background was a paramount factor in the successful launching of Nurturing Minds. Born into a wealthy community outside of Philadelphia, I developed ties and friendships with well-resourced and generous people interested in the larger world around them who later would become Nurturing Minds leaders, donors, and supporters. Throughout the development of SEGA and Nurturing Minds, I understood my role to be as a facilitator and linker of people. I did not have within me the necessary traits, skills, wisdom, or access to financial resources to tackle the issues of marginalization and exploitation of Tanzanian girls on my own, but I was able to identify dynamic and committed individuals in Tanzania and the US to join forces to do so.  

An extensive set of buildings, qualified staff, school board, and other criteria are required to legally start a secondary school in Tanzania. Having a limited budget, our local architect designed a starter building using an ‘all-in-one’ approach encompassing classrooms, lab, dorm, and office space for a lower cost than an entire campus. We filled our registration application months before the planned opening date and were assured the process would soon be complete. As the first day of school approached, we began to worry. The local authorities told us: “just wait”. Since we already had students we could not disappoint, we made the bold decision to open the school before getting official clearance. Six more months passed and still no registration. One day I received a letter from the Ministry of Education accusing us of operating without registration and ordering us to close. My heart dropped. I drove immediately the 3 hours to Dar es Salaam and went to wait outside the Principle Secretary of Education’s office. I showed him photos, explained ourselves, our mission, and our long wait for approval. He permitted us to continue operating; and called on his local team to speed up the registration process.

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Our goals are to meet the needs of girls at different stages of their lives and at critical points when they can be derailed in reaching a future they dream for themselves. Over the past 12 years, Nurturing Minds and SEGA have established infrastructure, quality teaching, life skills, entrepreneurship, career development, and outreach to vulnerable girls where they can discover what they are capable of and can reach their goals. We have developed strong boards, honed processes, and put protections in place for safe learning. We are now poised to bring SEGA programming to the next level by filling in gaps where resources are most lacking for girls to access opportunities. Elevate Prize funding will give us the leverage to create the programs that our girls are requesting such as skills training in jobs that are relevant in their communities and access to credit to start their own businesses and become financially self-sufficient. Elevate Prize funding, support, and recognition comes at a perfect time to keep our momentum going to reach more vulnerable girls and become a true model of nurturing each girl toward being an empowered young woman, capable of planning and shaping her own future.

Nurturing Minds and SEGA collaborate with like-minded organizations and community leaders to assist in delivering multi-faceted programs in a high-quality way. SEGA’s partners include

Local Government and Leaders:

Street Leaders, Ward Education Officers, District Education Officials, Church and Mosque leaders.

Non-Profit/Non-Governmental Organizations:

Safina Women’s Association provides a board member and recommends vulnerable students to SEGA.

UMATI (sexual and reproductive health), Small Industries Development Organization, Slow Food, and Sustainable Agriculture Tanzania provide specialized training using experts.

Nurturing Minds is a founding member of AMPLIFY Girls, a network of 18 community-based organizations in Tanzania, Rwanda, Uganda, Kenya developing best practices and advocacy for large-scale social impact.

Schools and Scholarship Programs Serving Vulnerable Children:

SEGA partners with schools and organizations providing scholarships, whereby the partners select students from poor backgrounds and educate them at SEGA, sharing the costs of sponsoring the students. Partners include Jifundishe, Queen Elizabeth Academy, Global Girls Empowerment

Tertiary and Vocational Education Institutions:

Sokoine University of Agriculture – provides internships to SEGA students and best practices for SEGA’s poultry and bee-keeping operations

VETA – vocational training for SEGA students and capacity building for SEGA teachers

Memberships:

Tanzanian Education Network

Tanzanian Heads of Secondary Schools Association