FROM DAILY NEWS: HOSTELS PROTECT SCHOOL GIRLS FROM MANY ILLS

HAMIDA Abdallah is a Form Four student at a school in Muheza District, Tanga Region. Hamida, who is a mother of a one-and-a-half-year-old child, says she was raped and made pregnant at 16 by a 35- year-old man as she walked 10km from school to her home.

She is among 24 per cent of teenage girls in sub-Saharan African, who get pregnant before the age of 19. Sadly, the statistics get worse when it comes to many parts of the country Statistics show over a million pregnancies recorded in the country annually, 25 per cent of these are teenage pregnancies.

This state of affairs has not spared either the school goers or the non-school goers. Needless to say, the effects spill over on to their health, economic and social status.

The World Population Day theme for last year, "Let girls be girls, invest in Teenage pregnancy," could not be more timely. The day is celebrated every July 11 to raise awareness on global population matters.

Like Hamida, some girls end up as young mothers after older men who abandon them have abused them sexually, a situation that TAMWA, under funding from Foundation for Civil Society seeks to change.

Hamida's earlier story of walking longer distances to school is one shared by thousands of girls todate. School girls have to walk 10km to school and this consumes most of their days away from school aside from meeting other distracters.

Such is a situation that Tanzania Education Authority (TEA) seeks to change through an ambitious project of building hostels for girls in eight regions. In the fundraising at which TEA targetted to collect 2.3bn/- for the project at the climax it sought to build hostels and help girls not to walk long distances to schools.

According to TEA's Manager for Information Education and Communication, Ms Slyvia Lupembe, they were targeting companies in Geita, 'wananchi' among other institutions to put their own mark on the country's education agenda.