Njombe Usawa Women Association (NUWA) is a women's organisation working in rural Njombe region in Tanzania, aiming to build women’s capacity by raising HIV/AIDS awareness, providing care and treatment for HIV victims, and offering assistance for human and legal rights. NUWA mission is to empower rural women and local institutions by building their capacity to work effectively together to reduce the spread of HIV/AID spreading and to promote women’s rights to property ownership and inheritance.

NUWA was established in the year 2010 as a group of few women who saw the threat of women in Njombe of getting even more marginalized due to national and customary issues concerning the position of women in the society. 

The vision of NUWA is seing a free society where women have free and equal opportunities in participating to enhance social welfare.

NUWA recognizes that, women, youth and children as the most vulnerable victims of conflict, disaster and underdevelopment. Therefore, their primary focus is the woman, youth and the child. All their  work is designed to bring hope and a future to the women, youth and children of Tanzania.

Through an integrated community based development approach, NUWA build community capacity to meet the needs of women, youth and children in the areas of primary health, education, food security, water, and environmental protection, advocacy, human rights, culture, disaster management and income generation. The group of people that the organization targets are in rural and semi-urban areas of Njombe.

The Organisation’s overall development goal is to empower the poor and vulnerable mainly who are women, youth and children to acquire knowledge, education, skills, and information sharing and credit facilities for improving their socio-economic status.

The main purpose for its establishment therefore, is to educate, build capacity and raise awareness of women on entrepreneurship skills, Medicare, customary and legal affairs, women and human rights, raise women’s voices, as well as provide tangible help and support to those proved to need it.

• Raising women’s awareness on national and customary legal frameworks pertaining to their affairs and rights and help them to claim their rights through them.
• Building women’s capacity on entrepreneurship skills for economic self reliance.
• Provision of Medicare awareness for and to HIV/AIDS victims.
• Raise women’s voice through media.
• Policy advocacy to include and increase the position and role of women in the society, especially in economic and legal affairs.

Currently NUWA has managed to conduct several seminars and workshops with the motive of building women’s capacity on the respective areas and to encourage and help women HIV/AIDS victims in Njombe. Also, the association has managed to establish several women clubs for women to exchange ideas, help each other, simplify consultation, and ease the process of getting loans to support their entrepreneurship initiatives for income earning thus enhancing economic independence from men and interdependence among these women groups.

NUWA has identified the following areas that need immediate intervention in the next five years: Water and sanitation;  Human rights; Environment conservation including alternative energy; Promotion of Health; Micro finance/ Income generating Activities;  Education; Sustainable Agriculture

The ongoing projects of NUWA are Uwemba women Pig project (Community Empowerment on generating income in Uwemba) and Ramadhani poultry project (Community Empowerment on generating income in Ramadhani).

Challenges

As a new young organization of not more than a year, NUWA has been and is facing the following challenges while implementing its projects;

• Electricity problems- We are facing electricity problems at least three days a week. For us, we need electricity as our vital office development agent.
• Internet problems- Here, we are depending on internet cafes for internet services. There has been cut-offs of internet network for several times during the working hours. Sometimes internet becomes very slow, hindering the downloading or uploading of files.
• Office facilities and modern technology- We still lack office facilities. Up to now we have got only one laptop for the whole office uses. Our office needs more computers, including laptops. We have got no printer, no photocopier, no fax machine, no digital cameras, and no digital projectors. Our projects are educational ones, empowering and capacity building. We need to prepare a lot, such as audio and video documentaries; we need to prepare IEC materials such as fliers and posters. We believe modern technology and good facilities will help organization do more.

To read NUWA strategique Plan Paper, please click on the following link  NUWA Strategique Plan Paper

To find out more about NUWA organisation and how to help, please visit their website at www.nuwa.or.zt

• Tanzania