About Champion Chanzige
Schools in Tanzania are woefully under resourced, class sizes often exceed sixty children and basic resources like pens and paper are scarce. Often there is no electricity in the schools, and countless numbers have no drinking water available to the students. All these hardships make it very difficult for the dedicated teachers to deliver a meaningful curriculum.
Despite all this, the children that attend these schools are amongst the happiest children you are ever likely to meet. They consider an education a privilege and study with dedication and enthusiasm.
Champion Chanzige strives to make small sustainable changes to the educational environment of these inspirational young people by providing resources, renovating buildings and delivering a range of ecological workshops that teach the students skills as well as creating an additional income for the schools.
About Champion Chanzige
Your donations at work
The need
In Tanzania, girls often have to miss an entire week of schooling when they have their period because they have no sanitary protection. Not only do they face challenges with sanitation but they miss out on their education as well.
The solution
Meeting Needs provided a grant of £1600 to support two four day workshops for sixty girls. The workshops, which included lunch, were designed to inform schoolgirls about appropriate behaviour during their menstrual cycle and menstrual hygiene management, educate girls about basic reproductive physiology, preventive measures to negate early childhood pregnancy and marriage, health/social issues associated with transactional sex, gender based sexual violence, condom use in preventing sexually transmitted diseases-including HIV, and appropriate actions for reporting sexual and physical violence.
Champion Chanzige found a partner in ‘Wear ’em Out’, a company that produce and sell washable sanitary pads. This partnership provided the girls with the sanitary protection that they so urgently need. Although it would be simple to just hand the pads to the girls Champion Chanzige felt that there would be an opportunity to educate and advise the girls about their rights, their sexual health and the importance of attending school and getting a good education.
They developed a workshop that includes a meeting with parents and local community members to talk to them about the value of educating their girls and ensuring that they attend school every week of the month. The sanitary pads are given to the girls at the end of the workshop. A social health officer from the Kisaware District Medical Office will be the lead facilitator for these workshops.
For more about the Champion Chanzige menstrual hygiene project, see here.