News Releases
A chance to shine at IWD event
Switzerland | 12 March 2018
Budding young female entrepreneurs from the growing community of Migungumalo in Tanzania celebrated International Women’s Day by showcasing their colorful batik products at an event organized by the Government in Tabora.
Given this year’s theme of ‘The Time is Now: Rural and urban activists transforming women’s lives’, the event provided a perfect synergy with the ARISE program’s philosophy of teaching young women basic entrepreneurial skills and arming them for roles outside the family home.
The girls, aged between 15 and 17, are beneficiaries of the ARISE program, which operates in the region to remove children from farm labor. The batik wares, which the girls had made during ARISE vocational skills training, made an eye-catching contribution to the event, and were produced following the girls’ integration into the program. The girls also sell their products at a small store in their local village.
Seventeen-year-old Merisiana Mayambwe enthusiastically showed off her products and shared her experience of the ARISE training.
Guests of honor, former First Lady, Hon. Salma Kikwete (MP), and the Tabora Regional Commissioner, Hon. Aggrey Mwanri, both praised the ARISE program and its invaluable contribution to transforming the lives of children and economically uplifting girls in the area.
ARISE vocational training targets older children who have been removed from child labor but are unable to be reintegrated back into the school system for various reasons. As part of a strategy to create and improve employment opportunities, the ARISE training also includes entrepreneurial skills such as how to start, run and improve small businesses. The training provides young females with an alternative to their traditional roles of caring for the family home and working in the fields.
In 18 months of operations in Tanzania, ARISE has withdrawn a total of 341 youth from child labor in the country; 98 of them from Migungumalo.
ARISE aims to end child labor in communities where JTI sources tobacco leaf. We work with those directly affected and with others who have the power to change things. Our initiatives are developed and delivered in collaboration with tobacco-growing communities, social partners and governments.
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