Our overall objective is to provide financial and technical assistance to the Rural Women Development Association (RWDA), our grassroots partners. The mission of our organisations is to free rural women in Tanzania from poverty, diseases and hunger through social, cultural, political and environmental activities. 
We stand for the development of rural women in all its forms. Rural Women have largely been ignored in the field of development activities apart from their expected manual labour contribution. Development changes have not matched the needs of the rural women in terms of their economic position, education, health and decision making. As small organisations run by volunteers and without Government help, we are operating solely in one area; the ward of Ilongero and its 18,000 residents. We will not leave the area until the villagers make as redundant; a prospect we actually look forward to.
Why we wanted to help women, first and foremost
Women are the backbone of Africa’s rural economy. They grow at least 70 per cent of its food and cash crops using mostly hand tools and are responsible for half the animal husbandry. In addition to virtual sole responsibility for child-rearing, the sick and elderly, they are traditionally expected to search for fuel and water and attend to small livestock. On average they work an 80 hour week, yet they earn only 10 per cent of Africa’s income and own less than 1 per cent of its property.
the daily chore of fetching water
To add insult to injury, women are normally excluded from decision-making or owning land because they are often illiterate, they lack confidence and they have no political clout. Culture, poverty, ignorance and fear deprive women of control over their reproductive powers. The poverty trap is renewed with each new generation.
Life expectancy after infancy is 50 years; but infant mortality remains distressingly high. Most African women spend their entire lives child-rearing, from early girlhood when they start to look after their younger siblings, to early grand-motherhood. In her lifetime, an average woman has 6 to 7 children of whom 4 to 5 survive to maturity. In many countries, widowhood means total destitution while for others, cultural and economic pressures mean sexual violation and exposure to HIV/AIDS.
How we go about helping
We believe that, for projects to be successful and sustainable, they have to be part of a broader objective that tackles cultural, social, political and economic injustices. Life is very hard for African women, especially in rural communities. The first impulse is to provide financial help, even train them in basic economic activities and in running income-generating projects. However that path can actually burden the women even more, chores still have to be done, the children still need looking after and more importantly, the fruit of these new activities more often than not hands up in the pocket of the male head of household, when it is not even just a close relative.
So we believe that what is needed first is for women to be offered help in understanding why, in their societies, within their families, they rank at the bottom of the social ladder, sometimes even after the cattle. They will rightly advance reasons of culture, but there are parts of culture that need to be re-assessed and redressed by the women themselves if they are to take charge of their destiny. And it need not be in full opposition to men. So women need to be taught how to question their position, social as well as economic first and foremost. The RWDA is attempting to do just that using awareness-raising seminars and workshops.
We also believe that financial independence should be part of any development programme aimed at helping women overcome poverty. To that end, the RWDA provides training and microloans for income-generating activities aimed at groups. The RWDA favours groups as they believe that the pooling of resources, time and knowledge is a way of ensuring success on a scale larger than simply guaranteeing a subsistence living.
Our core objectives are to provide
• Information on issues women feel ignorant about such as their rights in law and on how to claim them.
• Education in areas women feel they need to progress in, such as hygiene and family planning, so that they are better able to look after themselves and their family.
• Education in self-awareness so that women can begin to feel part of the community of women worldwide.
• Education in new skills so that women can be more economically productive.
• Financial help with micro loans to get new business ideas off the ground or simply to give a boost to present economic activities.
• Financial help with getting children to pursue their education to the limit of their abilities and not the parents’ financial ones.
• The means to facilitate the education of girls, especially at secondary and tertiary levels, so that the next generations of women may start, hitting the ground and feel secure in the knowledge that they have the skills, not only to provide for themselves and help their family, but also to claim and enjoy their equality.
