One month at the Pastoral Women's Council

My first month as co-programme manager at the Pastoral Women's Council has been hectic to say the least. Whilst the projects themselves operate in Loliondo, Longido and Monduli (North Masaailand in general), I have been working at the Arusha office. Here I spend my time with my co-manager, two finance assistants and the executive director when she is not in the field.

I've been plunged into the season of reporting and fundraising - luckily the reports are almost over, and we've had renewed committments from donors to sponsor masaai girls at secondary school and higher education. Also the beginning of the year has seen the renewal of staff contracts and other HR fun and games. Right now, the rest of the management team are getting ready for the annual staff meeting, General Assembly and the first board meeting of the year, which will be in Loliondo. Phew!

Learning about the organisation and all the projects they run has obviously been a necessity, along with how best to communicate with staff across three districts. I still have so much to learn but these have been the most important things so far:

• Girls sponsorship at secondary school is the most effective way of preventing forced early marriages and pregnancies.
• I did not previously know about the tradition of 'esoto' - night time dances with Masaai warriors and girls that ends up in unwanted pregnancies.
• Its a dilemma to encourage girls (and boys) to finish their education when the schools are of such low quality; corporal punishment is rife, teachers are ill-trained and often don't bother showing up to lessons, and the curriculum is pre-Victorian.
•  Land rights cases can be postponed for over six months at a time and subsequently can continue for years.
• There is a bewildering array of various mechanisms of local government, some of which are taking on the responsibilities of their community e.g. sponsoring girls' education, and funding the process of women receiving land titles.
• Nursery schools that don't receive any funding from the government are trying to sustain themselves through livestock businesses.

On to month no. 2...