Rework Energy: solar aid reworks electricity in the village – East Africa and Latin America

Rework Energy: rural energy foundation wants to raise awareness about the benefits of solar power in Africa.

Rework Energy: TaTEDO, the Tanzanian traditional energy development organization works to advance access to renewable energies in Tanzania.

TaTEDO

Rework Finance: the FSDT has been established to support Tanzania’s development of pro-poor financial markets.

FSDT

Femina HIP Tanzania

Femina HIP is the civil society initiative behind the Fema Magazine, the most popular and in demand magazine in Tanzania, where articles about sexuality, relationships, risk, HIV/AIDS and other lifestyle issues are integrated into a glossy, colorful and attractive magazine, a beacon of Tanzanian youth culture.

‘We are today de facto the largest media platform outside the mainstream media, with print runs of over 170.000 copies of our leading magazine Fema distributed to every rural region of the country‘ says Femina HIP founder and director Minou Fuglesang. She created the initiaitve in 1999 after working as a researcher and consultant in the field of sexual and reproductive health and rights, and after reportedly loosing her patience over the slow speed of change. ‘We have created a healthy lifestyle brand and planted the seeds of a people’s health and rights movement.’

Femina HIP is celebrating its 10th Anniversary in 2009. The initiative has grown rapidly to become a multimedia initiative comprising two recurring print magazines, a weekly TV talk show, radio programmes and an interactive website, chezasalama.com.

Its bi-monthly magazine ‘Si Mchezo!’ (No Joke!) is for out of school youth around the country, with an estimated readeship of 2 million people. It is distributed free of charge or in return for transportation agreements to several hundred partner organizations including companies and local government. Many large scale workplaces, such as the tea estates, use the magazine to educate their workforce and nearby communities.

Femina HIP has further potential as an education tool as it can carry many agendas. Every year a million young Tanzanians enter the labour market. The need for jobs and livelihood is enormous and is accelerating by the year. Femina HIPs targets youth and their communities and has realized the need to move into issues of livelihood, job creation and financial literacy. Unsafe sex is often transaction sex, connected to money. People need first and foremost to feed themselves. Femina’s established media platforms are a key asset and opportunity to channel skills development and entrepreneurial ideas to young people on a large scale, and this is precisely what it intends to do.

‘We hope to deepen this agenda through the Rework the World initiative’ argues Minou, ‘a “Rework Femina” where we adjust our agenda and vision to make a contribution to creating jobs, particularly green jobs, and a better life for millions of Tanzanian youth entering the labour market.’

An obstacle to scaling up the Femina HIP media agenda to reach even larger audience groups is funding, as the audience is still not ready to carry the cost of the production of such media