Pamoja Tunaweza (Together We Can) Women's Center

We have had the keys to what will be our women’s center now for almost 2 weeks. We are all sleeping in the house as well when we come to Moshi from Kilema. Somehow the stars were crossed in our favour, because I really can’t believe how fortunate we have been to find this place. The purpose of the center is to provide additional support and services to women in need in the Moshi area and hopefully we will eventually have links to more rural areas outside Moshi. Impoverished (and often rural) women are often in the most difficult situations due to lower rates of education; with shocking illiteracy rates. The center has been the vision of Mama Minde, the director of KWIECO (Kilimanjaro Women’s Information Exchange Consultancy Organization). KWIECO established ties with CACHA a few years ago and CACHA ultimately sponsored Mama Minde to come to Canada in August 2006 for the World AIDS conference. Elizabeth (as I usually call her) presented her work on women’s land rights in Tanzania. She won an award at the conference and is definitely a trailblazer of women's rights in Sub-Saharan Africa. As I have ranted about in several blog entries, women need someone to champion their cause here and Elizabeth has been that person for more than a decade now.

KWIECO started as a small NGO funded by a Norwegian funding agency. They started with providing information and education on human rights (because it in the simplest sense, women’s rights are human rights). Elizabeth was somewhat of a one woman show initially, providing free legal counseling and going to court for women in need of legal defense. I am sure she was not well liked initially as customary law in Tanzania has dictated for centuries that women are ‘property’ of their husband and their husband’s family. They don’t really own anything within their marriage and when their husband dies, they often have difficulty retaining ownership of their land. The land is typically absconded with by a male relative of the husband (brother or father or even a male neighbor), the women can be left destitute and homeless, or, have some sort of arrangement with their in-laws to work for food and shelter for her children. HIV/AIDS has increased the number of women in this situation by a hundred fold and if the women is HIV positive, God help her, as her husband’s family is likely to shun her and her children completely. The option of returning to her parent’s home is not usually there as she is no longer wanted (and seen as a definite liability). Once a woman is married off here, she is her husband’s ‘problem’.
Many women in Tanzania are poor and unaware that the law does state that they are worthy of all rights afforded to men. Many of them have lived in marriages where they must get consent from their partner to go to the hospital, to work, to take on any role higher community role or try to further their education. A recent study completed by The Dignity Project in Tanzania looked at the causes of maternal and child mortality during childbirth and examined the rate of obstetrical fistula (where a canal develops between the vagina and the urethra..typically, these women leak urine, or between the rectum and vagina-they leak stool, or if they are lucky enough…they leak both). In 90% of cases of obstetrical fistula the baby dies. The fistula develops when the baby’s head is stuck in the birth canal for long periods. This happens because rural and even urban (yet poor) women live long distances from medical care or are unable to pay for it. The study showed that even after arriving at a medical center, many were turned away for being unable to pay or received sub- standard care because the center was incapable of performing a cesarean section. The study also determined that the type of relationship the woman had with her partner also impacted on the time it took to seek care. Many husbands insist that their wives deliver at home (even when the women have been instructed to go to a medical center to deliver because they are short in stature or have other pre-natal complications). In addition, the women who suffered from fistula also recounted that their mother-in –law had played a major role in the decision to take the women to seek medical care. Many women felt they were unable to make any of the decisions regarding the delivery of their own child. They also live with guilt for not feeling empowered enough to be able to save the life of their own child. These women are then subjected to a life as a social outcast if they cannot find or afford the specialized surgery required to repair their fistula. In simplest terms; they smell bad. This example of obstetrical fistula really provides a lens into just about all aspects of a poor and uneducated woman’s life here. The same type of empowerment issues also exist around HIV/AIDS. Many women know they need to be tested but are unable to have it performed because their husband or his family fears stigmatization from the community. Positive women who have received any pre-natal care have usually been told that they should deliver in a health care facility so that they can be provided neveripine during labor and deliver to prevent transmission of the virus to their newborn. The newborn is also treated with anti-retrovirals after delivery. This can lower the vertical transmission (mother to child) by 2/3rds. Tragically, these women are often prevented by their husband or family members from receiving this preventive care as well because of the stigmatization. Why am I on this tangent? Well, the issue of land rights (and human rights) in the simplest sense, is at the heart of all these issues. Elizabeth’s work to provide ‘one woman at a time’ with the right to land that is in all respects her’s is the first step to empowering women in many other aspects of their lives. KWIECO now also educates boys and girls about human rights issues.
The women that KWIECO serves are in need of more than legal aid. It has been Elizabeth’s vision to provide a safe and compassionate place for further social support and counseling to get these wome to the next step; beyond rightful ownership of their land. For those with HIV, even more indepth care is needed. We even hope to provide for the most at risk women, a safe place to stay if they are in dangerous marriages and are in the process of re-establishing a life for themselves and their children outside of the marriage. The building we are leasing has a self-contained apartment on the upper floor and would serve well as a place for volunteers to stay or women who need temporary shelter. The ground floor will house an office, meeting room and a counseling room. The counseling room will ultimately double as an exam room when we have a free women’s health clinic here (my dream).

I have uploaded pictures of the house. Roman and Jack burning brush from the garden, the office, bedrooms, upstairs kitchen, living room, patio and grounds (view from the front gate). I feel good here.

It is our eventual hope to provide free, open, safe access to women’s health care (mental and physical). We hope to provide education in reproductive and sexual health as well as offer HIV testing and treatment that goes beyond the norm, the taboos and the stigma that still exists here. It is my hope that our women’s center will one day fulfill that mission. I'll keep you posted.