Welcoming SEGA's first female Tanzanian Director

Nurturing Minds and SEGA welcome our first female Tanzanian Director: Laina John Mwandoloma

As SEGA Co-founder and women and girls’ advocate Blastus Mwizarubi heads into retirement we are thrilled to welcome SEGA’s first female Tanzanian Director. We know the importance of female leadership in creating positive pathways, mentorship and role models for the SEGA girls. We asked Laina to share in her own words what prepared her for this role, what it means to her to become SEGA’s director and where she will take the organization moving forward.

“I have known SEGA and worked as a partner with the SEGA team for the past seven years starting in 2014 when I worked as part of the Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) team with the University of Minnesota and Fundacion Paraguaya, and later over the past few years even more directly as a member of the SEGA board of directors. Working on M&E gave me the chance to go into the field and interview some of the SEGA girls while at home, most who had been drop outs and had babies already. We conducted qualitative interviews and got to understand what the girls’ challenges were as well as what their true future goals and aspirations were. It was at that time that I truly fell in love with what SEGA was doing –  listening to each girl, understanding her situation and then giving her an opportunity for an alternative future. I believe it is a huge “golden chance” for Tanzanian girls to be given this opportunity by SEGA and I believe by God.

I have worked with youth most of my life but usually with both boys and girls. I think it is amazing and exciting to be able to focus on girls and I believe that as a woman myself I can bring my life experience in a more practical way to them. I also grew up in a rural area without much money and so I truly understand their economic challenges and circumstances. Some of my close relatives did not have funds for proper clothing or food.

It is my personal objective to have SEGA recognized as the model school and organization that it is. It is a leading organization providing solutions to girls in the country. I want to make sure we provide answers to the questions that girls have and prepare girls for any situation inside Tanzania or outside the country. We want to nurture them so that they can face any of life’s challenges. If they get employment right away, that is wonderful. But if not, they need to have the skills to think outside the box and know what is possible. Entrepreneurship skills to me are not just around building a business. Having entrepreneurial skills means having the knowledge to pivot and do something different when one thing isn’t working. We at SEGA have amazing programs and we plan to create even more programs in the coming 5 years to continue to support and facilitate our students’ and graduates’ success. I’d like to see more and more students going on to university and one day I hope that many of our SEGA teachers, counselors and even the Director herself will be SEGA graduates.”