A short film made by the Obama Foundation's Girls Opportunity Alliance featuring Brenda, an adolescent girl from our Sauti ya Dada club in Arusha, Tanzania.
Meet Brenda, a 15-year-old student from Arusha, Tanzania. Every day, Brenda walks for two hours to collect water for her family. Due to the recent drought in her region, she has to walk further and further to find water—and sometimes it takes so long that she's too exhausted to go to school.
Brenda’s teacher selected her to be part of Creative Action Institute's Sauti ya Dada program, which creates and strengthens systems of support to help students like her complete secondary school. In addition to addressing other barriers to education, girls learn about the environment and how they can play a role in advancing climate justice.
Debuting on Earth Day, this film highlights how climate change disproportionately impacts girls and women, and in particular, girls' access to education.
Sauti ya Dada is a two-year program that supports marginalized girls in East Africa, helping them overcome barriers to complete secondary school education. It addresses issues such as poverty, gender inequality, sexual violence, teen pregnancy, child marriage, and climate change. The program organizes girls into clubs where they receive mentorship, leadership training, and education on sexual and reproductive health. They also receive monthly menstrual pads to ensure uninterrupted school attendance.
As a result, 99% of girls in the Sauti ya Dada program stay in school and show increased levels of self-confidence, leadership, climate change knowledge, and advocacy skills.