Dr. Marina Alois Njelekela-Executive Director -MUHIMBILI NATIONAL HOSPITAL.
Ms. Irene Kiwia, President and Founder of Tanzania Women of Achievement.
- Tanzania Women of Achievement hosts a power breakfast to celebrate International Women’s day under the theme: Connecting Girls, Inspiring Futures
- Dr. Marina Njelekela (TWAA Gender and Equality Champion) launches a girls empowerment project “Kinara ni Mimi Jasiri” that promotes young girls empowerment in Mtwara, Iringa and Lindi
Tanzania Women of Achievement (TWA) hosted a power breakfast to promote the empowerment of girls and women in Tanzania. The event brought in multiple stakeholders from the private sector, government, international organizations, and women empowerment stakeholders, past TWAA winners, mentors, mentees, partners and sponsors, so as to celebrate the accomplishments of women around the world over the past 101 years and get inspired to take action so that the next centenary will be a celebration of even more far-reaching achievements.
The breakfast’s keynote presentations by Irene Kiwia, TWAA Founder and President, Dr. Marina Alois Njelekela, Executive Director of Muhimbili National Hospital and Modesta Mahiga, Professional Approach Group MD were based on this year's international theme; "Connecting Girls: Inspiring Futures"
Dr. Njelekela who is the current Tanzanian Women of Achievement Awards Gender Champion, the Executive Director of Muhimbili National Hospital, a former MEWATA Chairperson and a past recipient of the prestigious Martin Luther King Drum Major Award for Justice seized the opportunity to launched a girls empowerment initiative titled "Kinara ni Mimi Jasiri" where she will work with young girls in Lindi, Mtwara and Iringa who are facing challenges to overcome early pregnancies, early marriages, school dropouts, STD's and HIV/AIDS infections. The project will focus on creating awareness, sensitizing the communities and creating a peer system that will empower girls with skills and knowledge needed to overcome these challenges and lead productive, educative and healthy lives.
This year’s celebration was centered on the girl child and developing the potential of Tanzanian girls to have a future of empowered women.
“Women need to support the dreams and aspirations of other women. We must use today to reflect on what we are doing in our various positions and capacities to reach out to other women and help them realize their full potential’ said the TWA President Irene Kiwia. “As women we need to back each other so as to promote more women in all competitive sectors instead of being our own worst enemies,” concluded Ms. Kiwia.
When giving her keynote remarks, The Professional Approach Group MD, Modesta Mahiga was quoted saying that “to achieve the Tanzania Vision 2025 of high quality livelihood, peace, stability and unity, good governance, a well-educated and learning society, a strong and competitive economy capable of producing sustainable growth and shared benefits we must ensure that equal opportunities for women and the development of the girl child is being pursued as a priority and earnest “do or die” survival strategy.”
Dr. Marina Njelekela when launching the “Kinara ni Mimi Jasiri” campaign stressed that “Teen pregnancy continues to cause serious health, social and economic problems on girls especially in the rural areas where they rarely get an opportunity to learn about reproductive health and gender issues. This account for up to 40% of maternal deaths in some African Countries and 20% of this in Tanzania is caused by septic abortions. So there is a great need for intervention especially through awareness creation, community sensitization and peer system strengthening through role modeling which is still uncommon concept.”
To date the Tanzania Women of Achievement has added value to the Tanzanian women and girls through its awards program (TWAA) that recognizes women who have made significant contributions to the Tanzanian society and the TWAA Mentorship Program, that has so far mentored and inspired over 200 girls in the regions of Mtwara, Iringa and Lindi.
Happy International Women’s Day!
I liked it,for sure wanawake tunaweza.
ReplyDeleteIts would really be a pleasure if i would be able to attend this meeting.
ReplyDelete