Negezi Women Did It

By Hidaya Haongo

It is a dry and dusty land where people, particularly women, depend on agriculture and domestic livestock keeping, as well as being entrepreneurs. However, they have had difficulties accessing good markets.

“If I want to sell my vegetables there are only two options, either to walk from house to house or go to a next village, that’s four kilometres from here, not only for sellers, as well as buyers, this was a problem that we needed to address,” explains Fredina Said.

Fredina is a residence of Negezi village, she and many other women are eager to do business, but are pulled back by the set up of the market structure within their village. When one decides to do any kind of business he or she has to walk eight kilometres to and from the next market centre. That was a challenge that her and other women as well as men faced.

She is one among many other farmer animators in Kishapu district, Shinyanga Region. Farmer animator is one of Oxfam’s Chukua Hatua pilots which aims to create active citizenship; empowering citizens to know their rights and demand for quality services and good management of public resources from their leaders and officials.

The pilot aimed at empowering farmers to search for information and be agents of change in their community. They were trained on how to ask and where to find information as well as being able to influence other farmers to do the same.

Through animation skills she organised other women in her village using her home group called Jitolee Group with ten women members. They wrote a letter to the village government asking for a market place. They used one of their group members Mary Makwaya, who is also a member of the village council, to make sure the letter is put as an agenda during the council meetings.

“Village Government saw the potentiality of having the market place in our village; they discussed and replied our letter that they have agreed to grant us a place for market. This have been our great achievement, we are waiting for it to start officially,” narrates Fredina.

In addition, one of assignment that animators were given was to visit their respective district council offices and ask for income and expenditure information from the District Executive Director; there they observed that Mwadui Mining Company Ltd does not contribute anything to the district budget.

This was shocking news to the animators,. Fredina and other animators from other villages of Kishapu district took the issue seriously and are planning to take to all village councils so it can be taken to the next level.

Responding to a question on how they will make sure it reaches decision makers since they don’t have mandatory like leaders; MP or councillor.

“We will have to work with our councillor as a starting point, so far we are trying to lobby our ward councillor so that he can work with others from neighbouring wards so ones the agenda is tabled, and they can join their voices,” replying Fredina Said.

Women at Negezi village are now aware of their rights and are becoming active, as the village leaders have granted them mar-ket area after sending a request to be allocated the same, explained Josephine Malima.

Josephine says that if market is built it will be of great help to women and villagers at Negezi village.

She adds that, market will help them to get income for them to provide necessary needs to their children at home and in school as well as their families. And will help them to be independent.



Ferdina Said from Negezi village in Kishapu district in Shinyanga region.

Where else would we go?

By Kisuma Mapunda

It is among the few places that men and wild animals have been living together, sharing the same eco-system for centuries. The world has marked it as the eighth wonder.

The place attracts millions of people from all over the world to visit and see how men have been living together with wild animals. They pay millions of dollars.  Recently there have been arrangements to shift these men to another area, the methods used for doing so have been harsh to these people living in the crater of Ngorongoro. They are called Maasai.

Over 300 homes were burnt down, 1,800 people were made homeless and over 100,000 livestock were left without water and pasture. This happened between July–December 2009. Kooya Timani, a member of a pastoral women’s group was not happy with the whole situation.

This kind of parcelling out of land among local and foreign investors and interests is common, and the village councils face a daunting task trying to reclaim lands, or negotiating user rights on behalf of local herders and farmers.

The Maasai spiritual leaders the Laibon are almost entirely excluded from any engagement on behalf of their communities. And the women, needless to say, are voiceless in these matters.

“I was there as soon as I heard about the incident, that some boma (huts) were burnt and one child was lost. As a Maasai woman and a mother it really  touched me to see those women crying for their loss. Some women had miscarriages since they were running for their lives,” narrates Kooya.

For a while she was thinking what else she could do to get people especially women to stand up so that their voices could be heard all over the country. Therefore, she decided to do something about it.

“The first thing I did was to talk to Ndangari Nchanwee. I met her at the scene  we were there together. I told her that if we kept quite the women will be the victims, because our husbands  are usually out there searching for pasture sites for herds of cattle. We are the one staying home with the kids. If this continues where else would we go,” explain Kooya.

In Maasai culture women are the ones staying at home watching over children and the general domestic welfares of their families.

That was the starting point for her, she then organised other women around Loliondo to speak up for themselves. This included Noriteti who lost her daughter during the evections as people were running all over the place to rescue their lives. They don’t know where she is to date not sure if she is dead or alive.

They formed a group of eight (8) people; three (3) women and five (5) men and went to Loliondo to meet with NGONET (NGO Network)  one of the major partners of Oxfam in Loliondo.

“Because we had no means of organizing ourselves, I communicated with an Oxfam partner called Ngonet in Loliondo. They facilitated us with bus fare and other expenses to Arusha. We went there to sue the District Commissioner over the matter, because he was the one approving the operation” says Kooya.

Not only they do that, but they went to president’s office and handed him a letter concerning their problem, but still nothing was done.

Kooya has been organizing women meetings in the villages of Ololosokwani and Saistambu. The main agenda is education for women, land rights and drought effects. So far about 500 women are aware of their problems.

“We need major campaigns to hold our government accountable, we have been marginalized by the whole community. Together we can and for sure we will continue to create more awareness to all women so that our voice can heard at all levels,” explain the mother of six Kooya Timan.

Kooya Timam from Ololosokwani village in Ngorongoro