As the world jointly celebrates the Girl Child on every 11th October, this year on Tuesday October 11th the United Nations Association of Tanzania celebrated this day with the girls at Mikocheni B Primary School while acknowledging our theme for the day “Our Time is Now- Our Rights, Our Future”.

The session was attended by 70 energetic & powerful the girls of from class 3, 4, 5 and 6 together with their teachers. The aim of commemorating this day was to educate young girls on their rights such as rights to education and issues around health living as a key to unleash their potential. Moreover we wanted to hear directly from the girls on what challenges they face and provide a platform for them to offer their call to society to uphold girl’s rights.

The discussions included;

• The history of the day, rationale and its importance.
• The rights they are entitled to as children regardless of their sex, such as right to education, right to health, right to play & recreation, right to be heard and right to lead.
• How they can engage themselves in leadership at school and home through clubs and leadership posts at schools and its importance in building confidence and skills to become great leaders.
• Lastly hearing from the girls as they issued a call to adults and the community at large. They expressed their desire of being nurtured to become great leaders giving example of the president of Tanzania. Apart from that they issued a call to be provided with ample time to study, to be protected from harm and abuse so that they can live to fulfill their dreams.

Young girls believe they are key agents of change and are important in creating the future they want if their aspirations are nurtured and their rights to education, health and engagement in leadership are protected.