MCL promotes fitness, education at Dar event

Dar es Salaam. A chilly Saturday morning was the perfect setting for the Newspaper in Education (NiE) Fitness Challenge, which went down in Dar es Salaam at the Mlimani City parking lot.

A byproduct of Mwananchi Communications Limited (MCL), the NiE Fitness Challenge was organised to rally support for the forthcoming Newspaper in Education initiative inside The Citizen newspaper, where weekly academic content will be embedded in the Tuesday edition of the paper and circulated to a select number of primary schools across the country, with the initial target aiming to reach over 1.5 million learners.

The fitness challenge that unfolded yesterday is the second build-up activity ahead of the official launch of NiE, with the first event being a corporate marathon held in 2022 at the Green Grounds in Masaki.

Hundreds of fitness enthusiasts from across the city convened to participate in the NiE Fitness Challenge, which also attracted various jogging clubs such as Wasafi, KM Sports Club, and representatives from Clouds Media.

The guest of honor, Ubungo District Commissioner Hashim Komba, who represented Regional Commissioner Amos Makalla, said the NiE initiative is important in three key areas: “It is going to positively impact the next generation of learners by encouraging a habit of reading,” he said, adding, “Too often it is said that Tanzanians do not like to read, but this initiative will change that narrative.”

DC Komba said that the second important factor in this initiative is the extracurricular reading that students will have access to. “They will get to learn other aspects of life that are not in the curriculum, such as how to select the right career,” he said.

“The importance of extracurricular education cannot be overstated. The government is aware how crucial it is in preparing students for the future.”

Thirdly, the DC said, the NiE initiative is going to collaborate with the Ministry of Health to tackle non-communicable diseases. “NCDs are becoming an increasing health challenge in Tanzania. NiE will help promote a more active lifestyle, which is one of the ways of mitigating NCDs,” he said.

Deputy police commissioner and Kinondoni regional police commander, Mtatiro Kitinkwi, said that the NiE initiative is in line with the authority’s community policing and inclusive security. “The academic content initiative also includes elements of morals, which is where we, as police, come in. Our key role is to combat crime, and crime is a result of moral decay. So, the moral aspect and patriotism are very important in the NiE project,” Kitinkwi said.

He added that the police’s focus should be on curbing the spread of crime, so other contributing factors such as peer pressure and a lack of morals need to be addressed through initiatives such as NiE. “If we succeed in this, then we would have won as a police force and community,” he said.

The managing director of Mwananchi Communications Limited, Bakari Machumu, shared the company’s objectives for NiE. “We are playing a role in building a better future for the next generation through academics and sports. In our efforts to empower the nation, as our company slogan says, we decided to go beyond publishing newspapers. So, we came up with this project, which will entail publishing a magazine every Tuesday focused on students, where they will get to learn academics, how to tackle various life challenges, but also their traditions and the history of Tanzania,” he said.