May 14, 2024
A Helping Hand — Not an Iron Fist
A growing philanthropic model builds trust and rewards ideas, rather than dictating how donated capital is spent. Growing up in a rural village in northwestern Tanzania, Josephina Joachim was a young woman who experienced hardship and injustice. Hoping to shift the narrative for girls who came after her, she and her colleagues decided to fight…
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April 10, 2024
Building Relationships and Impact: A Visit to Tanzania with GEC, February 2024
At the heart of GEC’s work is relationship building. Once established, a relationship creates the firmest foundation for collaborations that solve problems and/or seize opportunity. The deeper and more stable the relationship, the more dynamic and sustainable the collaboration. The purpose of such, is to work towards the shared vision of a world where no…
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March 13, 2024
Funding Community-Led Organizations: SHEEO’s Call for Trust and Collaboration
In the vast landscape of philanthropy, where resources often flow through well-established channels, small and remote Community-Led Organizations (CLOs) located outside of typical NGO-hubs find themselves navigating a labyrinth of challenges. Driven by a commitment to their communities and armed with a deep understanding of local challenges, CLOs often encounter formidable barriers when seeking…
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October 11, 2023
Voices of Kitenga: Peres Munanka’s Inspiring Path to Advocacy
After graduating from KGSS in 2020 with the school’s pioneer class, Peres Munanka didn’t take any time off between lower and upper secondary school. Instead, she went onto become GEC’s very first Kitenga volunteer. At that time, she remarked that she was “happy to volunteer to work with GEC because it is a passion…to see…
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April 5, 2023
Our Decade of Action
It’s written in our name. At Girls Education Collaborative, we believe that “collaborative” action to support educating girls is a mighty way to build a just and sustainable world. All the way back to our inception in 2011, we’ve intentionally taken a multi-disciplinary approach in our work, adhering to the mindset behind the United Nations…
Read MoreMay 23, 2022
Impact of 12 Years of Quality Education on Girls
By Ramsha Khan, Author and Sarah Filippi-Field, Co-Author Click Here to Download PDF Introduction A growing number of experts argue that girls education “is the world’s best investment with the widest-ranging returns” (Sperling & Winthrop, 2015, p. 4). There are a variety of economic, social, and political benefits from investing in girls education, including reducing…
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April 27, 2022
It Takes a Village: Mr. Mugabo Mkama
Mr. Mugabo Mkama is Second Master at Kitenga Girls Secondary School (KGSS), where he teaches physics and mathematics. Originally from Musoma in the Mara region of Tanzania, Mr. Mugabo has been at KGSS since 2018. In addition to his teaching responsibilities, he is responsible for organizing different activities, maintaining discipline of the school, and data….
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March 30, 2022
Kitenga Trip Reflection
This past February, I visited Kitenga Girls Secondary School for the first time. Like so many workers during the COVID-19 pandemic, I have been working remotely for GEC for the past 6 months. I definitely got some crazy looks from friends and family when I told them I was meeting my boss, Anne, for the…
Read MoreFebruary 18, 2022
Impact of COVID-19 on Adolescent Girls in East Africa
Click Here to Download PDF Pre-Existing Conditions Worsened by Pandemic Economic Hardship On March 16, 2020 Tanzania reported its first case of COVID-19 (Tarimo & Wu, 2020, p. 1). Since then, there have been devastating socioeconomic effects on the country. GDP growth slowed down from 6.8% in 2019 to 2.1% in 2020 as a result…
Read MoreFebruary 15, 2022
Beginners Luck?
Have you ever had that wombly feeling when you ended up doing something really well but it was the first time you had ever tried, so maybe it was just – beginner’s luck? I have to confess that I felt a bit of that wombly feeling a year ago when Kitenga’s first Form Four students…
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