Child’s education, health move me most: First Lady
First Lady Salma Kikwete launches the card that will be used in campaign against children labour during dinner organised by International Rescue Committee in Dar es Salaam on Friday. Right is sensation star Danielle de Niese, an ambassador and voice of IRC. PHOTO | MAELEZO
What you need to know:
- “It saddens me to see sometimes even children under-five forced into labour, many of them are from poor families, so they do this for a living,” Ms Salma Kikwete, The First Lady Of Tanzania
Dar es Salaam. First Lady Salma Kikwete has mentioned issues that touch her most as security, health, education and children’s rights noting that she has been dealing with these since she was a teacher.
“These are issues that propelled me as wife of the President to introduce Wama Foundation to address challenges in these areas, particularly for mothers and children,” she said.
She added: “It saddens me to see sometimes even children under five forced into labour, many of them from poor families, so they do this for a living.” She was speaking in Dar es Salaam on Friday evening during an advocacy dinner for movement against child labour in the country; the event was organised by the International Rescue Committee (IRC).
As ambassador and voice of the IRC, international opera sensation star, Danielle de Niese, performed at the event.
Described by the New York Times as “opera’s coolest soprano,” Danielle has been stunning audiences around the world since the age of eight.
Ms de Niese is in the country on visit for the IRC’s ‘Wekeza’ project funded by the US Department of Labour and designed to provide livelihood support and education to children and their families and empower them to live lives that are not dependent on child labour.
After visiting project areas in Kigoma Region, she expressed hopes that child labour would be eliminated due to investment put in the project.
On her return from visiting International Rescue Committee programmes in Kigoma District, Ms de Niese, called on everyone to become ambassadors to end child labour.
Over one quarter of Tanzania’s children work as child labourers in the tobacco fields, salt mines and fishing industries.
The Wekeza Project focused on changing the mind-set of parents and encouraging them to send their children to school so that they can get an education and live more fruitful lives.
The Wekeza Project also identifies those children who have missed out on an education because of child labour and enrols them in school.
