Looking to help

I received an email from my friend Musa, who I worked with in Tanzania and has helped me from time to time. He is of the Maasai tribe and I have the highest regard for him.

This is his letter:
Every morning on my way to work, I pass groups of women from the neighborhood on their way to work in commercial coffee farms across the hill. Despite being low paying, hazardous and full of avenues for exploitation, this is the most sought after job for women from this village. Other common income-generating activities for women around is selling illicit brew, crushing stones to make ballast and fetching water at construction sites. Very few households keep animals –cows, goats, pigs and chicken.

Couple days ago, I passed the groups again, however that morning my attention was attracted by one particular girl –Dina, the daughter of my next door neighbour. My attentions were not drawn to her because she’s the daughter of my next door neighbour but by the fact she’s among few girls in the village who have seen the inside of a secondary school. She sat for her CSE in 2007 and attained fourth division –some would consider this a failure.

Coming from poor family where education is non-important she could not pursue her dream of becoming a teacher. Early this year I connected her with a local organisation that sponsors Maasai girls for further education, however her grades could not qualify her for the sponsorship.

An aside: I have never understood the system of sponsoring students who have passed with first grades and who are automatically enrolled in government schools leaving out those with middle grades who can’t afford private schools.

Dina’s life is in limbo; she doesn’t know what do with the education she’s laboriously attained. She cannot pursue her dream because of her grades and because her family cannot afford to enroll her for private studies. All her age mates are long ‘married’ with one or two little ones. With a secondary education she’s not considered marriage ‘material’ by local boys most of whom are either illiterate or primary school dropouts.

Living in a large extended family with no source of stable source of livelihood –her father is half paralysed and never used to work anyway. Her mother -the breadwinner does odd menial jobs like selling illicit chang’aa, fetching water at construction sites or breaking rocks to sell ballast. With no options left Dina had to start supplementing her family meager income by fetching water at construction sites and now working at coffee farm like other women from the village. We can all guess where she will end up in the next year or two.

Growing up we were told education is the key to better life. I remember during Nyerere times we had songs to that effect encouraging us to go school. Dina embraced this idea hoping to get herself (and her family) from the clutches of abject poverty. She now possesses a certificate of secondary education -a golden key but no door to open.

Salaams,

I have found it very difficult to find extra money help for the people I am already helping, but I have told Musa that I would try, and hope that through this blog I can raise some money. I checked my absence account and today have made $0.11c which means readers are not clicking on the ads!!
I will just keep on writing these blogs, I enjoy doing them and I am hopeful that I can find links that will bring readers and stimulate comment.