Importance of granting girls access to opportunities

Dorcasbahati Mgogwe is founder and executive director of Girls First Initiative. This is an organisation that promotes girls’ rights to economic benefits and gives girls access to opportunities, resources and skills they need to be competent and competitive in the job market but also to be able to start their own businesses.

She studied Science in Education at university. She defines herself as a person with the passion to work with girls towards creation of safe spaces and sister-circles where girls can be themselves without any fear of being judged.

She says that she didn’t have such an opportunity when growing. She likes comfortable people who share values of kindness and treating others fairly. She tells her story in an interview with The Citizen’s Rising Woman Initiative reporter Salome Gregory.

Question: Tell us a bit about your career journey, how did you get to where you are today?

Answer: Soon after my graduation I didn’t know what next since the government stopped hiring. No career guidance no work experience. No entrepreneur skills. I started to look for jobs. Being asked for sex in exchange for job opportunities was one of the bad experiences I came across. Thank God, after a long struggle, I got a job but while working, I experienced emotional torture, violence and competition. This made me ask myself how many girls were going through more or less same experiences. I thought of creating a safe sister-circle for girls to share their struggles. It started as WhatsApp group where my friends and I shared our issues after work, every day. It was funny and made us all feel safe. In 2020, I created an online platform (msichanakwanza.org).

Why did you choose to deal with girls? What about the boy child?

Our first beneficiaries in our programmes are girls because research shows that girls in Tanzania are still disadvantaged in access to resources compared to their counterparts, boys, which impinges on their ability to respond to new economic opportunities.

However, we involve boys in our programme for them to understand of the importance of gender equality and help them to understand more why girls need to be treated the same and be given the same opportunities. We involve boys from the recruitment in our team to the designing specific projects for them on genders issues.

Please expound more on Girls First Initiative and why is it important to have such an organisation?

Girls First Initiative, as the name suggests, mainly focuses on girls aged 17-27 who are in secondary schools, universities, and graduates. All our project and activities aim at creating, nurturing and transforming young women from their current statuses to role models in their communities.

We nurture girls by providing them with mentorship, resources and skills they need tailoring to their needs to excel in their careers. Through our mentorship programme we match girls with role models and idols they see in the communities, share and learn from each other.

We transform social behaviours through our different awareness campaigns both online and in person. We transform the way the community looks and see the capabilities of girls in their areas but we also transform how girls see themselves by raising their confidence, creating their spheres where they feel safe and can bring out the best of themselves.

Initiatives like this are important because they help to create a generation that is free from all forms of violence and harassment, that has gender balance as well as creating role models for future generations.

A lot of empowerment programmes focus on the girl child. How much do we need male involvement in supporting women empowerment?

While implementing these affirmatives actions, we normally tend to forget that boys don’t live on

Mars, they live in our communities, one that is heavily male-dominated. Hence, involving male in women empowerment activities is crucial towards creating safe spaces for those women that are empowered. Involving males in this matter is also a way of cultivating for gender equality in society. Both sexes are important towards the realisation of a more just society, where no one is judged because of their gender.

What are the criteria used to coach and empower girls at Girls First Initiative?

The biggest criteria we are looking for is age which is from 14-27. Every woman of this age can have access to our platforms and projects. However, the services offered vary based on one’s needs.

In your views, what do you think women empowerment is all about?

Women already have wings just to let them fly and reach the horizon. The whole idea has been there for years.

Currently, women are more empowered than before, however there is no safe environment for the empowered women to fly to reach the horizon. Empowered women currently look like rude, unmarried people which is not safe for them. As we are empowering these women it’s important to prepare a safe environment for them to live peacefully.

You have trained 40 girls. What more examples are you proud of as founder of Girls First Initiative?

My goal is to train 2,000 young women entrepreneur in the next five years and provide loans to more than 500 young women to start their businesses while providing the best-customized entrepreneurship curriculum for schools in Tanzania. I have also successfully trained 30 girls on employability skills. My wish is to train 1,000 female graduates each year on employability skills to make them become more competent and competitive on the job market, as a way to ensure young women have equal powers and opportunities to make and act on economic decisions and share in economic benefits.

What is your leadership style?

I would describe my leadership style as that of leading by example. I enjoy delegating tasks and watching someone take ownership of the project activities and being responsible, but I also like to stay involved and inspire my team by showing that I’m working hands-on to help them, too.

What challenges do you face in your leadership journey and how do you overcome them?

Being a young women leading a group of people, who at times older than me, is a bit of a challenge. But, as the director, I make sure I always communicate and remind them of our vision and how it is important for them to abide by the rules we have set for ourselves so that we can reach our objectives.