Empowering Futures with Our Services

1.3 Early Childhood Development

Early Childhood Development is viewed by BFA as being essential for a child’s healthy development. The foundation for later success in life is laid throughout the early childhood years. It is a period when a child’s brain develops quickly, providing opportunities for learning and growth. When a child is raised in a supportive and intellectually engaging environment that supports all of his or her needs—including the psychological, social, spiritual, and physical ones—they can have a good start in life. The youngster also has a better chance of realizing his or her full potential in later life as a result of this. The absence of one or more key requirements makes it crucial to treat children’s needs comprehensively.

Approach: Every child has a right to early childhood development. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, Article 6 (Article 6, UNICEF), highlights that the child has “a right to live… and develop healthy” and that every child has “the right to a standard of living that is good enough to meet their physical and mental needs” (Article 27, UNICEF).

Our goals consist of reaffirming the significance of expanding investment in the institutional and policy environment for ECD workers and providing high-quality early childhood education and care for all young children. To promote fair and high-quality ECD services, it is important to share best practices, difficulties, and experiences with one another. The typical course of a child’s growth, including its physical-motor, social-emotional, moral-spiritual, and cognitive-linguistic abilities

Funded: We are open for a funding call. Donate here

Gap: BFA has been supporting ECD projects every Saturday and through the community library. Yet, we are missing enough resources and personnel to expand our projects.

2.2 Sexual Reproductive Health Rights (SRHR)

Youth and adolescents in Tanzania are exposed to high-risk sexual practices, which increases their chance of negative outcomes. They experience sexual coercion and transactional sex, have several sexual partners, make early sexual debuts, have limited condom usage and condom acceptability, have limited contraception use, and have a misunderstanding about sexual and reproductive health.

They consequently experience pregnancy, contract common STIs like Chlamydia trachomatis and Neisseria gonorrhoeae, as well as HIV, and have several sexual partners, which may be related to lack of information about STIs and HIV or preventative efforts in sexual and reproductive health in Tanzania (Behav 2009). where teenagers between the ages of 18 and 35 form 70% of Tanzania’s population (UNICEF 2018).

According to the study, young people said there was nowhere in their neighborhoods where they could go to discuss sex-related issues. Lack of equipment, discretion, privacy, and unfavorable service provider attitudes such as stigma and prejudice Less than 20% of youth reported knowing where free or easily accessible condoms could be found, and pregnancy is the second most frequent reason for adolescent girls dropping out of secondary school. The majority of youth expressed knowledge of oral contraceptives but ignorance regarding their use and negative effects.

Approaches: Policy Advocacy to Prioritize Youth-Friendly Service Implementation by:

Allocating resources in their health budgets for the setting up of youth-friendly corners within the public health facilities Allocating resources for training health service providers on youth-friendly service provision Ensuring consistent supplies of essential health commodities in all public health facilities. Creating demand for youth-friendly services at the county level and encouraging partnerships and collaboration with other partners working on the provision of youth-friendly services SRHS Education.

Funded: BFA is looking for potential partners and donors to further this project. Donate here

Gap: BFA is looking for potential partners, and donors to further this project

Success stories: BFA conducted various trainings and interventions, including the “HER VOICE SYMPOSIUM” with collaborations with VOYOTA on discussions around AGYW. BFA is part of the DDA Youth subgroup advocating for SRHR policy reforms.

4.1 Economic Strengthening

Children and youths, especially girls, may be pulled out of school by families who have lost their source of income during a crisis to help with household expenses, help out with chores, or take care of younger siblings. To meet their fundamental requirements, children who have lost both parents may resort to destructive livelihood practices.

To address this challenge, BFA is intentionally strengthening the household income through different sustainable approaches,

Approach: savings and loan groups through rotating savings and credit associations, village savings and loan associations (VSLAs), savings and internal lending communities (SILCs), and self-help groups (SHGs). Income-generating activities (IGAs), Skills training, jobs creation, and linkage with the government in planning, advocacy, and coordination of SP policies and approaches

Gap is looking for a potential partner to kick off a project to support youth, teen mothers, and school dropouts.

Funded by: BFA is looking for potential partners and donors to further this project. Donate here

Successful stories: BFA is carrying out the AGPP project under the CRVPF to support adolescent mothers and teen mothers.

Gap: BFA is looking for potential partners, and donors to further this project

Success stories: BFA conducted various trainings and interventions, including the “HER VOICE SYMPOSIUM” with collaborations with VOYOTA on discussions around AGYW. BFA is part of the DDA Youth subgroup advocating for SRHR policy reforms.