Pastoralists'
girls from the Omo Valley in South Ethiopia have not an easy life, facing
constantly different challenges. Even though there are many factors which
are contributing to these challenges, low primary school enrollment and high
dropout rates are the major ones. Specifically, the major problem is a very low
community awareness about the benefits of education.
There are many factors responsible for the lack of school education of Omo Valley pastoralists' girls. Here are some:
(1) Community awareness:
In most of the pastoralists’ communities residing in Omo Valley, girls' primary
school enrollment is hampered by the lack of awareness of the importance of
education among the community leaders/elders. The individual families have no
right to refuse the decisions made by the elders and traditional cultural
pressure to keep daughters home instead of sending them to school prevent
widespread participation of girls in school education.
In order to bring significant changes to the communities' awareness, training
for local educators and routine community conversations about the benefits of
school education for girls are crucial.
OMC will take on this role by providing training and educational conversations for initially four different tribes: Dassanech, Hamar, Kara and Arbore tribes.
(2) Local
schools:
Some Omo Valley tribes have an abundance of
school buildings and infrastructure (government-sponsored, through former NGO
and missionaries' activities, etc.). Nevertheless, rarely a
qualified teacher exists to provide more than basic education. Often local
teachers just teach to fulfill their job requirement and not to lose their
work. Attendance sheets and grades are manipulated to impress the government
officials rather than trying to motivate children to attend
school regularly.
We see a
need to intervene: One of OMC's focus is to improve education by providing
training for primary school teachers and parent representatives (i.e.,
on the benefits of early childhood school enrollment & school retention
mechanisms, on the appropriate use of lesson plans, and job satisfaction).
Also teaching material will be provided to selected schools in the Hamer
and Dassanech districts.
(3) Early
childhood marriage:
Based on our own experiences early childhood marriage are indeed very common
among the Hamer (in opposite to other Omo Valley tribes). At more than one
occasion we hit a roadblock when selecting children for our OMC program because
the husband (in addition to the parents) had to be consulted. We have met 4 year old girls already given away to their husband, but still living in the parents’
home.
Independent on Hamer girls potentially enjoying more freedom than other tribes
in their early childhood (not based on own observations: allowed to go out with
peer groups, dancing, chatting with friends, developing relationships,
affiliations, having boyfriends, etc.), fact is that they are often
given away early to a husband preventing them to receive school
education.
That’s
what OMC tries to stop by educating the community about the importance of school
education and by providing such education for pastoralists' girls.
(4)
Pastoralists’ girl status:
As in many other Omo Valley tribes, the Hamer,
Kara, Dassanech and Arbore communities see daughters often as a source of
wealth. They are not only used as the family‘s housekeeper (doing all the work
the mother doesn’t want to do: fetch water, collect fire wood, sweeping, etc.)
but are solely raised in the hope of a big bride price (usually goats). Since
school education rather decreases the value of a girl (once a girl goes to town
her attitude changes and the risk is high that she never returns back to the
village permanently to get married) rarely an opportunity to attend school is
offered to girls.
That’s
where OMC comes into play to support girls‘ education to give them an ‚out‘ of their
cultural circle where they are first housekeeper of their parents’ home,
followed by being a work horse and simply property of their husbands.
(5) Other factors:
Polygamy and having many children serves as the pastoralists’ social security
system. These are all valid factors leading to the current problem that
pastoralists' girls are not receiving sufficient school education and are
unable to be the next generations‘ leaders. Instead they continue in a
men-dominated cultural setting to work as slaves and being often inhumanly
treated as simply property.
One of OMC‘s focus is to educate the community about these
flaws in society and we hope that we can demonstrate that girls are human
beings with equal rights to the male population and that they should play a
major role in shaping the society of upcoming generations. One step
towards this goal is to provide pastoralists girls an opportunity to be raised
in one of OMC's
Project Sites in a multi-cultural setting (different Omo Valley tribes
mixed together) with access to unique learning/teaching tools.
Help us to give
pastoralists' girls a chance to become the next leaders of their respective
tribes by allowing us:
(1) To give them quality education and a safe environment to
grow up
(2) To improve school education quality by
providing teachers with training and teaching tools
(3) To educate the community about ritual malpractices and
cultural flaws preventing their daughters to receive well deserved school
education and respect from the rest of the community.
Here are many options listed to help us in this endeavor: DONATE
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