Informationsbrief #35, Graduation ceremony

On 5 October 2024, ECLAT and upendo for the first time celebrated the graduation of the teenage girls at ECLAT’s training centre in Emboreet. It was a truly emotional graduation ceremony for the first group from the pilot project, a moving celebration with 22 teenage girls who had developed into young women during their training over the past two years. And it was a pleasure to see them. The parents were also there, even many fathers. The ceremony was attended by two guests of honour, namely Ms Asia Halamga, elected member of the Tanzanian parliament representing the youth, and Mr Fakir Lulandala, District Commissioner of Simanjiro District. After a tour of the first almost completed buildings of the new training centre currently under construction, the graduates proudly presented their various products such as home-made food and clothing. Women from a nearby women’s group also offered their home-made products, including various items of clothing, traditional beaded jewellery and liquid and solid soaps. The young women then marched, cheering and singing, to the festival centre where tents had been erected to provide shade for the large audience of parents and the community, students from the neighbouring secondary school and various guests of high standing. Speakers emphasised the importance of education and urged parents not to force girls into early marriages but to help them get an education. ECLAT was thanked for its continued support and the outstanding leadership of Philomena Kiroya and Catherine Maguzu in empowering women in Maasai society was emphasised. Finally, the guests of honour presented the young women with their graduation certificates and each of them with an initial set of either a sewing machine or cooking equipment to enable them to start their own businesses. The graduation ceremony ended with a festive dinner.

Following the pilot phase, the regular operation of the new training centre for teenage girls who do not qualify for further education in Tanzania’s school system will now begin in January 2025. It is intended to offer them an alternative to forced marriage. The first buildings have already been completed, such as the residential buildings for the teachers and the dormitories for the girls. Further buildings will follow next year. Part of the education will then continue to take place provisionally in the ECLAT women’s centre. The teachers and the headmistress have already been selected and recruited by ECLAT. They are currently taking part in various training courses to prepare them thoroughly for their tasks. ECLAT has also organised information campaigns to encourage the population to register teenage girls for the training course. We are grateful to the BMZ (German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development) and a foundation for providing the funds for the project.

In the last few months of this year, upendo and ECLAT has once again been able to renovate, extend or build a whole series of primary schools in remote villages. The shorter distances to school, which the children always have to do by foot, increases the proportion of children from the widely scattered bomas who are sent to school by their parents. The district government reports that the proportion of school-age children who actually attend school is now around 80% in Simanjiro – compared to 30% just 10 years ago. The coordinates of the more than 50 schools (as of the end of 2023) that we have built, expanded, or renovated in Tanzania over the past 10 years can be found on our website.

At the beginning of September, we welcomed a high-ranking political visitor from Tanzania. Queen Cuthbert Sendiga, Regional Commissioner of the Manyara region (comparable to the Prime Minister of a Federal State in Germany), accepted the invitation of upendo and spent a week in Germany, accompanied by her husband and Toima Kiroya, the head of ECLAT. Her primary goal was to express her appreciation of the joint work of ECLAT and upendo, to meet German sponsors and donors of our work and to express the gratitude of the Tanzanian government to them. In addition to visits to various foundations and companies, the BMZ (Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development) and the parish in Solingen-Aufderhöhe, the programme also included a meeting with Herbert Reul, Minister of the Interior of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia and patron of upendo.
At the information event on 14 September 2024, the Mayor of Leichlingen, Frank Steffes, and a number of other interested people took the opportunity to meet the Tanzanian guests directly and receive first-hand information about ECLAT’s development projects among the Maasai people of northern Tanzania

On behalf of Tanzanian Government, I express deep gratitude to the German government and stakeholders for their endless support of Tanzanian development projects, especially in underserved rural areas such as Maasai of Simanjiro District. We greatly value the significant contributions made through the projects aimed at improving the standard of lives of Tanzanians.
It’s my hope, our partnership will continue to endure and be sustainable for the benefit of the peoples of our two nations, particularly in fostering development in key sectors such as Health, Education, Water, and Women Empowerment.