A new movement of change is sweeping across Tanzania as thousands of people are publicly coming together to demand an end to the plague of domestic violence that affects so many families.

Dorothy Muli Amani owns Barefoot Records and Entertainment in Arusha, Tanzania

Oxfam is supporting the national ‘We Can’ campaign, called Tunaweza in Swahili. It’s just over one year old and by 2013 aims to have 1.6 million Tanzanian change-makers on board – people who will speak out about the horrors of domestic violence and persuade others to do the same.

“Our organisation is part of an alliance with five others and we want to sign-up 52,000 change-makers as part of this campaign,” says Elly Rassia, gender officer with Oxfam partner Haki Medini. “We are asking these people to commit to sign up to the campaign and then get ten others to do the same. So far we have 537 change-makers on board, 207 of whom are men. They are our ambassadors, spreading the message of change,” she explains.

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Today, 7th March, hundreds of women marched to Mnazi Moja in the centre of Dar es Salaam to make an early start of the International Women’s Day commemorations. Hundreds more joined in the activities that included women sharing their testimonies, music, and workshops on topics such as gender based violence and the economic empowerment of women. The events were organized by Oxfam, Concern, ActionAid and other allies*.

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rice harvesting in Tanzania. Our partner MVIWATA carries on vital advocacy work in Tanzania, empowering smallscale farmers to work their way out of poverty.

Oxfam Ireland participated in the MVIWATA’s (a network of small-scale farmers’ groups in Tanzania) Partners Meeting held in Morogoro, Tanzania at the end of July.

The objective of the meeting was to provide inputs in the new MVIWATA’s Strategic Plan 2010 – 2014 that has the following five objectives:

• Farmers are well organised and able to advocate for their interests
• Small scale farmers are able to influence local, national, regional and international policies and
  effectively participate in decision making on issues of their welfare
• Small – scale farmers are economically empowered to address income poverty
• HIV and AIDS, gender and climate change are mainstreamed in the work of MVIWATA and members, leaders and staff of MVIWATA are aware and fully engaged
• MVIWATA has sufficient organisational, functional and financial capacity at national and middle levels

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