As an administrator for the ministry of education and a member of Camfed’s Community Development Committee in Iringa, Tanzania, Mary Mwakajwanga helps monitor Camfed’s work on the ground. Because Camfed’s programs are designed to reach the most vulnerable girls in any given community, Mary has encountered dozens of girls in the course of her work who have migrated to the city to do domestic labor. Her mission:  to track down children who have been forced by difficult circumstances to leave school and work for a living, and to offer them the opportunity to re-enroll in school with Camfed’s support.

Fatina Kiluvia talked to Mary Mwakajwanga about the conditions that drive young people to leave their families in search of jobs that offer little compensation and a high risk of abuse.

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I am the fifth of seven children and my mother raised us on her own, so we were always struggling. I was never certain from one year to the next whether I would be able to go to school. But I was fortunate: In Kilombero District where I grew up in central Tanzania, there were three mothers who were passionate about education, and if they saw that a girl was unable to go to school they found it so painful that that they had to help. They supported me up to standard seven (seventh grade). (more…)

When Lydia Wilbard was just ten years old, her mother died. From that moment on, Lydia dreamed of becoming a nurse so that she could help to cure people when they got sick. But growing up in a small village in rural Tanzania, her ambitions seemed like an impossible dream.

Lydia was sent to live with her aunt who had seven sons of her own. Conditions were tough and Lydia had little time to go to school because she was too busy cooking, cleaning, collecting wood and washing clothes for her male cousins while they went off to school. (more…)