Girl Power and Valentine’s Day

Earlier this month, SEGA’s Education for Life (EFL) department organized a training for all SEGA students from the NGO UMATI, which provides sexual and reproductive health information, education, and services in Tanzania. The training focused on gender-based violence and was a good primer for the three-hour Valentine’s Day celebration the EFL department also organized.

Valentine’s Day is a time for SEGA students to celebrate and share powerful messages with each other. This year’s event included drama skits, songs, role-playing based on violence and female genital mutilation and how to overcome these challenges. The SEGA staff made a speech about the girls’ empowerment and the girls knowing their rights and the celebration closed with the annual Break the Chain Dance.

The Break the Chain dance is part of the One Billion Rising global action to end violence against women (cisgender, transgender, and those who hold fluid identities that are subject to gender-based violence). The campaign is named for the one in three (one billion in a global population of seven billion) women and girls who will be beaten or raped in their lifetime. It’s really awful to think about, but these are issues facing women and girls around the world, including in Tanzania, and education and messaging around these issues build solidarity and strength.

The Break the Chain dance is an important part of the campaign because many women around the world see dance as liberating and empowering. It can also be a way for women to reclaim their bodies. Dance is joyful, defiant, fierce, and artistic. If you have ever had the opportunity to visit the SEGA School you’ve experienced the power of dance on campus.

We hope you had a happy Valentine’s Day full of love and support.

Quotes from students on SEGA’s Valentine’s Day celebration

“During Valentine’s Day event at the school, I learned that girls and women are so powerful, but to be more powerful, we have to break all kinds of chains that underestimate us like low self-esteem and violence,” Suzana, Form One student.

“We are solid and can do anything if we are respected,” Josephine, Form One.

“Valentine’s Day is about giving hope to all those women whose rights are being denied, showing them love,” Nuru, Form One.