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This months wasn’t less busy than the last. After the TV workshop the next event followed suit, the annual Femina Youth Conference. Femina encourages the formation of in-school clubs to read and discuss the topics from the quarterly Fema magazine, over 400 of these clubs have registered across Tanzania. A few representatives from every region were given the chance to come to Dar and attend this conference. It was at Silversands Hotel on the North Beach, but as I probably was only to go to be there for the first day I wasn’t staying overnight. Not such a bad thing, as I realised when I arrived there in the morning. The setting was really beautiful on a nice stretch of beach with not much else around, but the complex had clearly seen better days, somehow reminiscent of the Wild West with some tropical features thrown in. But for housing a hundred pupils and some teachers, it was alright. The big hall was done up nicely, all covered in Femina branding - white, yellow and red - and all participants (including myself) were wearing the same red ‘FemaClub’ T-shirt.
The start was delayed for one reason or another, so we stole all
the kids for a quick shoot on the beach - drawing a huge map of Tanzania in the sand and making them stand on the map where they were from and then shout out various things, like their region or some greeting for the show. So when the guest of honour, the senior school inspector, finally arrived, our organising colleagues were a little annoyed, that the TV team had hijacked the audience…
The official opening was orchestrated by one of the clubs, who’s members formed a traditional dance group. Then there were a few speeches, all in Swahili, so I didn’t get catch too much of them. But I had my colleagues filling me in any semi-important stuff I had missed.
One of my missions was to get the participants to complete a questionnaire I had prepared with my team after the TV workshop. We wanted to get an idea, which topics they were most interested to see discussed on the talk show the following season, so they had to rank the ones we had brainstormed and could add suggestions of their own. It was great opportunity, as this was our target audience and from all parts of the country,
which is otherwise hard to get. The room was quiet for five to ten minutes, it looked like they were in an exam and to my amazement every single questionnaire was handed back in completed.
The aim was also to record a whole show at the event, so we had to get some outspoken youth together for a discussion, film some interviews and a few other pieces. While the previous year the material didn’t go to air until the new season some six months later, we had now planned to air it the same week, so that it felt more current.
I didn’t plan to stay long that evening, but I first cornered by a couple of pupils, who were very keen to hear what I was doing, but also about a wide range of topics from career planning to development politics and history. When I finally was about to say goodbye to my colleagues a strong rain had started and they told me there were some horrendous traffic jams back into town, so I might as well stay until after dinner and wait for the rain and the traffic to clear. What followed was another interesting debate - Western
Femina branding all over
Rebeca (one of our talk show presenters), the guest of honor from the Ministry of Eductation, Minou (our Executive Director) versus African value systems. It was really fascinating, as my colleagues opened up from a side, I hadn’t seen much before. In this environment away from the office and with no other Non-Tanzanian around, they spoke up, in some ways quite critical - something I hadn’t seen that much this country before. There was a broad spectrum of opinions intermingling various religious elements (some are Muslims, some Christians), traditional rural conservative as well as very westernised voices or in favour of the African-socialist ideals of the founder of the nation, Julius Nyrere. It gave me lots of food for thought, not the least as Femina’s work is by definition not free of values. If you advocate in areas like sexual health and education and gender equality, it is unavoidable to come in conflict with certain traditions and values.
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