Empowering adolescent girls in Tanzania

Image © Children’s Rights and Violence Prevention Fund

The Children’s Rights and Violence Prevention Fund (CRVPF) supports community-led initiatives that create safe spaces for adolescent girls in Tanzania to gather, learn, and grow without fear. Across the country, only 27 per cent of girls attend secondary school, leaving them more exposed to harassment, abuse, and exploitative relationships. To address these challenges, CRVPF’s community-led initiatives offer protection, peer support, vocational training and access to life-changing skills.

It all started in 2019 when CRVPF partnered with Kiota Women’s Health and Development Programme, a community organisation that provides vocational skills training to adolescent girls in gardening, tailoring, weaving, soap-making, and financial literacy. The skills provided the participants with a potential source of income, and built their confidence and independence.

Four women, Jennifer, Francisca, Mariam, and Zawadi, participated in the initiative when they were teenagers. “I learned how to set goals and think critically about my future,” says Francisca. After finishing the training, all four girls expressed the desire to help other girls in their communities. Building on this success, CRVPF partnered again with Kiota to mentor the girls and help establish their own community organisations.

As adults, Jennifer, Francisca, Mariam, and Zawadi are continuing to empower other girls in their communities through the organisations they have created with CRVPF’s support. For example, in Dar es Salaam, Mariam helps teach vocational skills, discuss challenges, and build supportive networks. “Girls have ideas, but without money or support, they feel powerless,” says Mariam. “We wanted to show them they’re not alone.”

This initiative is part of CRVPF’s Adolescent Girls Power Programme, which complements vocational training by helping girls navigate personal and social challenges.

In Tanzania, child marriage and exploitative relationships remain significant issues, often driven by poverty. Families may marry off girls to reduce household expenses, or girls may enter an exploitative relationship in exchange for financial support. But early marriage can mean lower levels of education, increased health risks, and lifelong dependency. In contrast, the combination of CRVPF’s life skills and vocational training is transformative: the girls learn to recognise unsafe situations, assert boundaries, and earn their own incomes, which gives them the power they need to make choices about their futures. “I used to rely on men for basic needs,” says one girl. “Now I earn money weaving baskets and I buy what I need myself.” 

CRVPF brings together community organisations to share resources and collaborate. This ensures that programmes are locally owned, sustainable, and responsive to girls’ realities. The safe spaces created by CRVPF, and strengthened by the efforts of Jennifer, Francisca, Mariam, and Zawadi, have become trusted hubs in their communities. “I want every girl to have access to a safe space, no matter where she lives,” says Francisca. “We can end gender-based violence in our district.”

Oak Foundation supports the Children’s Rights and Violence Prevention Fund through its Prevent Child Sexual Abuse Programme. We believe that child sexual abuse is preventable. This fact drives our commitment to end child sexual abuse online and offline. You can find out more about the Children’s Rights and Violence Prevention Fund on its website or learn more about Jennifer, Francisca, Mariam, and Zawadi here.