Our women live in Ilongero, a big village by Tanzanian standards and in the surrounding hamlets where people live close to each other in family groups. There are a few primary schools and one secondary school, a couple of ‘cafes’, a few churches and a mosque. The hub of the village is its vegetable market and traders come from surrounding villages. A few small kiosks sell all sorts of things but none seem busier than the mobile recharger stand.
the village square
Electricity has come to the village but few houses are connected as it is very expensive, so oil lamps are used. Very few houses have piped water but there are a couple of public standing water pipes accessible only for a short period during the day. The village is located on the top of a hill and from the main square in front of the market you can see the corner of a large lake. This is an area too far from the parks to attract tourism and too arid to support the main crops for exports such as coffee and bananas. So the majority of people in Ilongero and the region have a subsistence style of living and more than half live below the national poverty line.
the market
Ilongero is situated in the region of Singida in central Tanzania, one of the poorest in the country. Its population at the 2002 Census stood at 1,090,758 people, of which 559,743 were female. 46% of the female population is between 0-14 years of age. The region comprises of 4 districts: Singida Urban, Singida Rural, Iramba and Manyoni. We are currently operating in the Ilongero ward of Singida Rural. A ward of some 18,000 people.
Singida town
The area is semi-desert and suffers from poor rainfall. Nevertheless, 86.3% of the Singida Rural community are employed in the agriculture sector. An additional 4.1% earn their living by keeping livestock. Due to extensive clearing of the land to make way for agricultural activities, precious topsoil is often lost when the rains do come. Thus the need to diversify outside of farming activities is obvious. Singida too has two lakes bordering the city. They are salty but beautiful places to walk around, with birds nesting on the swampy area and cattle drinking the water on some specific spots
a typical house
Within the district, electricity is largely inaccessible with only 0.4% of population using it as a main source of energy for lighting. Charcoal and firewood are used as the primary source of energy. In addition, only 39.4% of the community have access to piped, protected wells as a source of drinking water. 12% of the population have no access to toilet facilities.
Literacy rates among men and women of the district are 68% and 59% respectively. There is a single high school in each ward to support the students of the surrounding villages. While official statistics state 70% of children of school age are enrolled, attendance rates do not reflect this.
old and overcrowded
Transport from the villages to Singida town is limited to public buses that pass the major village of each of the wards. Buses run twice daily between Ilongero and Singida town (26kms) and the buses are always packed to the brim with people, goods and even live chickens. During the rainy season, the unsurfaced roads become impassable and the service is cancelled.
Resource information: 2002 Population and Housing Census data and Singida – Regional and District Projections Volume XII – Dec 2006 Published on the National Bureau of Statistics, Tanzania website. http://www.nbs.go.tz
