Saturday, September 26, 2009

Three albino killers to hang

By Correspondent
24th September 2009

Three albino killers, from left is Masumbuko Madata, Emmanuel Masangwa and Charles Masangwa escorted by police at Shinyanga Court.
The High Court, sitting in this Shinyanga Region town specifically to preside over cases involving albino killings, delivered its first judgement yesterday. It convicted and sentenced to death three accused persons.
Reading the ruling, which lasted about an hour, High Court Judge Gabriel Rwakibalila said the court was satisfied that the evidence presented by the prosecution side proved beyond reasonable doubt the involvement of the three convicts in the killings.
He said the trio conspired and killed schoolboy Matatizo Dunia (13), an albino, on December 1 last year at Bunyihuna village in Shinyanga Region’s Bukombe District.
Those found guilty and now on death row are Masumbuko Madata (32) of Itunga Village, Emmanuel Masangwa (28) of Bunyihuna Village and Charles Kalamuji alias Charles Masangwa (42) of Nanda Village, all in Bukombe District. The court ruled that they committed the crime as per Section 16 of Criminal Act No. 196, as amended in 2002.
“This court has found all of you, first accused Masumbuko Madata, second accused Emmanuel Masangwa and third accused Charles Kalamuji alias Charles Masangwa, guilty of killing Matatizo Dunia, and therefore you will be hanged to death. However, you can appeal the sentence if you so wish,” the judge pronounced.
The long-awaited judgment appeared to please most of the people who had turned up at the court premises in huge numbers for an eyewitness account of the climax of the historic proceedings.
Judge Rwakibalila said the defence furnished the court with evidence meant to present the accused as innocent, adding: “But later evidence from the same side proved that the three accused were in fact solidly behind the killings.”
He explained that despite an inconsequential mix-up of some facts in submissions by the prosecution side, “the truth remained intact and hence the fairness of the judgment delivered by this court against the accused”.
The judge said among the trivial “slip-ups” he was referring to was the number of vehicles used by an unspecified number of police officers during arrest of the suspects.
“It is impossible for human being to remember every detail. However, this cannot change the truth,” he noted.
Added the judge: “The evidence presented in court included statements by Madata’s wife and Masumbuko’s third wife Yunis Peter, who stood as the second prosecution witness. The two women narrated in court how they saw their husbands returning home accompanied by Rajab Luchoronga, who is still at large. They also witnessed Matatizo’s severed legs being recovered from a nearby bush which Masumbuko frequently visited for soothsaying.”
Judge Rwakibalila pointed out further that the evidence presented in court by a bother to Madata showed how the accused fled alongside Luchoronga as the police approached.
“Again, third accused Kalamuji’s wife identified as Sofia Andrew explained how her husband disappeared from the family home on November 30 last year before it was reported that he had been arrested in connection with the killing of an albino,” added the judge.
Commenting on the evidence presented by the Chief Government Chemist, the judge said the first and the third accused were directly implicated in Matatizo’s brutal killing “as DNA samples collected from the boy’s blood technically proved them to have hand a hand in the killing”.
Soon after Judge Rwakibalila was through, the defence side declared that they intended to appeal the ruling.
Defence counsel Kamaliza Kayaga said he was not satisfied with the ruling against his clients and contesting it was the only option they would pursue.
The court adjourned until September 28, which is set for the hearing of another murder case. This time the accused is Joseph Lugota of Kagongwa Village in Isagehe Ward, who stands charged with killing Ng’wana Gimbishi (75) of Kilimbi Village in Mwalugulu Ward in Kahama District.

SOURCE: THE GUARDIAN
www.ippmedia.com

New threat to albinos at school in Mwanza

New threat to albinos at school in Mwanza
By Staff writer
27th September 2009

Children with albinism admitted to a boarding school at Mitindo in Mwanza Region in efforts to keep them safe away from albino killers, now face a health threat.
According to the head teacher Juma Abdallah the pupils travel up to three kilometers to fetch water from a well far from the school. The school has a total of 148 pupils, 45 of whom are blind while 103 are albinos. Albinos lack pigments in their eyes, skin or hair, making their life difficult in Africa, where there is plenty of sunshine. They are more susceptible to skin cancer and sunburn.
“As you have seen, the pupils are forced to wait under the sun in a queue for a long time, risking their tender skins and weak eyes by exposing them to the sun,” he said.
Other challenges they face are shortage of blankets, bed- sheets, toothbrushes and tooth paste. The school also needs a professional matron and patron as well as regular heath check-ups. Mitindo School in Misungwi District was initially meant for blind children. Now, owing to lack of dormitories, two pupils are now forced to share a bed. “Following the outbreak of albino killings, the government directed us to accommodate the children, but their number is overwhelming and we’ve no alternative as our request for additional budget is yet to materialize,” said the head teacher.
The albinos have been killed for their body parts to be used in witchcraft by persons who seek wealth or sexual potency. At least 53 albinos have been killed since March, 2007 in various parts of the country, mostly in Shinyanga and Mwanza regions.
The killers sell body parts such including arms, legs, hair, skin and genitals to those who practice witchcraft.
Meanwhile, Mwanza Regional Commissioner Abbas Kandoro is currently cautioning parents and guardians to refrain from sending albino children there any more.
He said: "Parents too are duty bound to protect their children," adding that this is not solely a government responsibility. Kandoro called on each district authority in the region to construct a primary school where children with albinism would be mix with other children.
Government and lobby groups say Tanzania has about 170,000 albinos out its population of 40 million people.

SOURCE: GUARDIAN ON SUNDAY
www.ippmedia.com

Thursday, September 17, 2009

TANZANIA: In Tanzania, a Maasai Girl Escapes to Education

By David Conrad
ARUSHA, Tanzania (Reuters) - At 12, brown-eyed Neema Laizer persuaded her elementary school teacher to accept one liter of milk each morning instead of money because her father refused to pay for a girl to be educated.
At 13, her father selected a 30-year-old stranger to be her husband. The next day, she was supposed to drop out of school and begin a new life as a housewife and a mother within a year, a common fate for young Maasai girls in Tanzania.
Laizer had a different plan.
While her father slept, she and her mother quietly packed a small backpack of clothes, then she slipped on a pair of black rubber sandals and escaped by moonlight through heavy tears and forest brush, running more than a mile to her uncle's home.
The next morning, the two of them drove for six hours to a refuge 200 miles away that he had whispered to her about.
Now 19, Laizer is preparing to start college in the autumn -- hoping to be the country's first Maasai woman doctor -- and speaking out against female genital mutilation, forced marriage, and violence against Maasai women in the East African country.
"In the village, we only exist to earn cows for our parents and to serve a man we normally do not love," said Laizer, referring to the dowry of cattle paid for brides.
The Pastoral Women's Council, a non-government organization, estimates at least three Maasai girls run away from home daily to escape arranged marriages.
Hundreds of thousands of others are enslaved by oppressive traditions handed down by their elders, while the laws to protect them are rarely enforced, even as unsuspecting tourists marvel at their beadwork.
The Maasai, easily recognized by their colorful dress and traditional jewellery, number about 1 million throughout the hills of northern Tanzania. Fewer than 10 percent of girls reach secondary or high school and fewer than 12 have received a college diploma, according to Maasai schools and support groups.
Most young women are denied education, forced to marry men decades older, and face a life of servitude, abuse and rape.
"These aren't traditions worth protecting ... because girls are being refused education, they just don't understand," Laizer told Reuters. "Some are starting to say it's wrong, but only in secret. I am ready to talk openly about it. The Maasai must change."
SCHOOL OF DISCOVERY
The refuge that freed Laizer from her tribal traditions lies in the foothills of Mount Kilimanjaro at the end of a ruddy dirt road lined with banana trees and footprints, behind 10-foot (three-meter) high bushes and white steel gates.
A remedial school for 13-to-18-year-old girls, the Emusoi Center was founded by Catholic missionaries with the help of one of Tanzania's few female Maasai college graduates, and is now home to 75 Maasai girls.
Since it opened in 1998 Emusoi, a Maasai word meaning "discovery," has placed more than 400 in 80 boarding schools across Tanzania after housing them for one year. Of the 240 or so Maasai girls who started secondary school in the country last year, 119 had been through Emusoi.
Tanzania's government has created programmes to encourage semi-nomadic peoples such as the Maasai to educate their children and not marry off under-age girls, but to little effect. Laizer cited many tactics used by Maasai men to preserve the status quo.
In her village, she said, girls as young as six are forced into wedlock. Those who manage to evade marriage after elementary school may be raped -- a pregnant girl is not allowed to attend school in Tanzania.
"It is a strategy," said Sister Mary Vertucci, who created the centre with the help of 29-year-old Maasai graduate Anna Shinini. Girls who make it to Emusoi risk being raped if they return home for a holiday: "The men of their village will plan to do it ahead of time so the girl can't leave again."
Such practices are illegal, but law enforcement in Tanzania is often a struggle. Laizer's mother was hospitalized after being nearly beaten to death for aiding her escape. Laizer herself did not return home for four years after running away.
So Emusoi never closes. Seventy girls spent Christmas there last year.
WHAT'S TANZANIA?
The girls' year at the school in the resort of Arusha is also an introduction to electricity, running water and meeting people from other tribes, said Vertucci in a cement-floored office of bare walls, filing cabinets, bulletin boards and an aged Dell computer.
Many new arrivals do not even know they live in a country called Tanzania.
"We ask them what their nationality is. But many of them will just say the name of their village -- they've never even heard the word Tanzania before," she said.
"They don't understand that they are part of a bigger country ... (never mind) the concept that there is a whole other world of opportunities and lifestyles out there for them."
"Normally, circumcision and marriage is the way, not school or work or planning a future like that," said Vertucci. "These girls are really becoming role models who never existed before."
Emusoi students are set to be the first Maasai women to take up several professional roles in the country: one of the school's earliest students, Teika Simango, 25, is due to complete her legal training later this year.
The Maasai's seclusion -- and resistance among the males -- remain major obstacles, said teacher Shinini.
"I will go to the door of many girls' homes in remote villages, and tell them 'just graduate from primary school and then I know where you can go,"' said Shinini. "It's dangerous, but I want to help my people. What else can I do?"
Laizer finally returned to her village after she had finished secondary school. She smiled as she re-lived the moment: "Now, everything is fine," she said. "Even with my father, he understands now."..............

Ref: http://www.fgmnetwork.org/gonews.php?subaction=showfull&id=1201898129&archive=

Saturday, September 5, 2009

Commercial sex workers `ready` to die for money, research shows

By Hellen Nachilongo
3rd September 2009

Women engaging in commercial sex have little room to negotiate on safe sex owing to lack of confidence because they value money more than their lives, according to research findings.
The research, which was conducted recently by Telecommunication Marketing Company, involved respondents from Haya, Nyamwezi, Ngoni and Hehe ethnic communities with an average age of 27 and educated up to primary school level.
The research discovered that most women are engaged in the high risk business due to lack of alternative sources of income.
It also found out that venues where commercial sex workers looked for customers were in bars, night clubs and on the road side.
The respondents disclosed that they had an average of 40 sex partners in the past months, adding that the average amount they were paid was between 12,000/- and 15,000/- per session while the lowest amount was between 2,000/- and 5,000 /-
However, according to the findings, the mode of sex mainly determined the amount they were paid.
Clients who preferred not to use condoms were willing to pay more, and so were those who preferred anal sex. However, according to the findings, the level of awareness of HIV and Aids was generally high among sex workers.
The research also revealed that a considerable percentage of the sex workers use illicit drugs with their partners. The main drugs used include bhang, cocaine and heroin.
According to the research, 72 per cent of cases of violence were not reported for fear or further victimization or loss of customers.
Commenting on the research findings, T.Mark monitoring and evaluation director Jovian Tibenda said the research aimed at finding out challenges sex workers faced, especially in rural areas.
She said in rural areas most sex workers were not aware of condom use and so ended up getting infected with HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases.
“Most such women normally go for an HIV test when they are pregnant only and not voluntarily” she said.
SOURCE: THE GUARDIAN

www.ippmedia.com

Friday, September 4, 2009

W.I.F.E.S – Winning Initiatives For Environmental Sustainability:

W.I.F.E.S – Winning Initiatives For Environmental Sustainability:

Summary:
Under W.I.F.E.S several projects will be created. The main focus will be development of local communities and environmental sustainability promotion . relevant partnerships will be built.

Green Waters foundation believes everyone can make a difference. It is our aim to reach out to diverse groups and individuals who are not yet participating in development, so as to empower the development engine by more Green Energy (The people).

With more people involved in environmental sustainability initiatives, we will move a step forward towards achievement of UN Millennium development goal 1 – eradication of extreme poverty and goal 7 – Ensuring environmental sustainability.

The first project under W.I.F.E.S is creative recycling:
The short term goals for this project are:
- To raise awareness of environmental impact cause by our daily behaviour.
- Teach creative recycling skills
- To create product lines which use recycle materials
- To create outlets for the product lines

This project will be done in stages:

1. Creative recycling of waste:
We organise workshops that teach different ways of creatively recycling waste materials from households and various industries
2. Recycling Centres:
Waste collection centres that will also provide opportunities for internships, entrepreneurship and employment in sectors such as i.e cleaning & sorting of waste, recycling art workshops, awareness workshops, production.

3.Environmental sustainability awareness workshops:
Workshops offering various knowledge in environmental management.

We are currently on the first stage.


1.CREATIVE RECYCLING OF WASTE :
We started with creative recycling so as to transfer knowledge (capacity building) about different ways of recycling, that can have a positive impact on our household income and also on environment.
Our motivation is to reduce the ecological footprint (EF)
Ecological footprint:
Ecological footprint (EF) is an idea which was developed with a purpose to make people realise how their use of earth resources, limits the sustainability of the resources. Therefore, in the long run failure to reduce our EF will lead to the decline of the resources and the earth inhabitants won’t be able to survive or maintain existing lifestyles.
The earth is portrayed as a dome of which limited earth inhabitants and resources are trapped in. It is up to the inhabitants to learn the best ways of utilizing the resources in order to make them last longer and also to maintain the best quality and the possible renewal of the resources.

Our consumer habits impact environmental resources:
Examples:
1. The textile industry uses cotton as one of the main raw materials.
Cotton production requires use of large plots of land, and also use of pesticides. Most production is done in developing countries of which there is no regulation for use of pesticides such as DDT.
DDT is a highly poisonous pesticide and it’s use to kill insects that attack crops ensures a healthy crop.
However, DDT takes a long time o break down once it is sprayed on the grounds, during spraying the wind might blow the spraying to non targeted areas, and rainfalls carries DDT into rivers and other water sources used for human consumption and cause health damage i.e Poisoning, damage on the immunity system and Cancer.
2. The paper industry uses different kinds of trees for raw materials.
Trees are natural habitats for wild animals. Apart from providing living environment they are a main source for modern medicines.
They provide us with food and properties to make products such as sweets, chockolates, juices, hot drinks.
Other products made from trees are perfumes, food flavours,rubber, soaps, cosmetics, musical instruments, furniture, boxes, books and clothes.
Trees are used to capture greenhouse gasses emissions. This slows down global warming, which has caused extreme weather changes that have endangered human lives all over the world.

By extending the shelf life of products such as those made from the two examples we have discussed, we are reducing our ecological footprint.

Tired of old fashioned jeans? Recycle them into an inspiring product and make money from them!

Tired of receiving newspaper advertisements? Be creative, make splending products with low to zero investment costs.
Many examples can be found on google:

Background:
Habits are established from a young age, therefore family and communities are important in influencing children’s behaviour and developing future values.
The values that we learn early in life, also influence our environment and the way we act towards each other, and during the time of a crisis.

The current economic situation, has had a negative impact on household incomes. Job security is not as it used to be, many people are facing unemployment.
Governments are facing heavy burdens in health insurance and social welfare because more people can’t afford to pay taxes, and more businesses are going bankrupt. ...........


To read more about W.I.F.E.S visit our organisation website http://www.green-waters.org/

Thursday, September 3, 2009

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!!!



‘Are you kidding me!!!!!!’
She shouted in a total rage,
Furious and foaming at the mouth.
‘I grew up with 6 brothers,
She continued ….
I had to clean, cook and fetch,
For each and every one.

I had to sweep the grounds outside,
And clean the whole house,
I had to cut grass for the cows,
And clean the sheds too,
I had to cut firewood for cooking,
Fetch water from the river,
rush home to do the cooking.

I had to wash their clothes,
Save their meals,
And as I grew older,
Serve their needs,
I never asked to be a woman,
I cursed the day I was born!
When I got heavy with child,
I didn’t know of which brother,
I still had to do the same.

And now I have 7 daughters,
With no father to raise them,
No man ever pleased me,
And yet I lived my life for them,
I see my daughters growing up,
With all the chances I had in life,
I boil with anger at injustice,
from everyone around me,
and you ask me this stupid question!????
Why can’t I read or write?
You ask!
Why don’t I care for my children?
You say!
Why do I curse and cuff their heads?
You ask!
I live in this nightmare,
In each and every day.
You know nothing of it!!!!

Family planning you ask?
Who the hell do you think you are!???
I’d rather slit my throat in peace,
Or drink some broken glass,
Than raise the anger of my husband,
Who saved me from those rats.
So yes he may beat me,
And I am pregnant every year,
At least I get some food,
Sometimes even a beer.

You don’t think I am so smart?
I try to save my daughters,
By being ready for my man,
Each and every night.
The pain doesn’t matter,
I never knew any better,
I have plenty of smarts,
I try to save my daughters,
Maybe they will still be virgins,
At least to the age of 10!

What does life have for them?
In this land owned by men?
My own father sold me,
For the bride price of a cow!
I never even tasted the milk,
As I was already gone.
I didn’t cry, what’s the use?
And you call this child abuse?
You don’t have no idea!

I am 16, a woman,
Pierced by my brothers,
At half that age!
What right have you,
to blame my husband?
Did he not pay a price?
Is he not feeding me better?
Do I not have a home?
Is it worse to be married
And save one man,
Than to be a ‘’child’’
And save all my brothers?

You call me a fool?
Are you kidding me!!!!!!
Go buy more trendy shoes
And be on your way!!!’

She finished in rage.