GLAMI (Girls Livelihood and Mentorship Initiative)
Our flagship partner and sister organization, GLAMI, supports girls’ education in Tanzania, where only 39 percent of girls attend secondary school and less than 3 percent continue on to tertiary education. Through mentoring programming, GLAMI provides girls with the opportunity to transform their own lives and the futures of their communities. Their vision is a future in which all Tanzanian girls have equal access to high-quality educational opportunities that empower them to achieve their goals and better their communities.
GLAMI carries out its mission with support from Daring Girls, delivering two key mentoring programs:
Kisa Project
Kisa Project is a two-year leadership program that prepares upper secondary school girls to attend university and create positive social change in their communities. Learn more.
Binti Shupavu
Binti Shupavu is a four-year life skills course for lower secondary school girls in Tanzania which improves resilience and increases graduation rates. Learn more.
Providing General, Unrestricted Support
Unless a funder or donor specifically restricts their support to a specific purpose, the funds Daring Girls raises and sends to GLAMI are unrestricted, enabling GLAMI to put funds where need is greatest. Their programs require trained professional staff, measurement and evaluation tools, printed materials, drivers and fuel, and an operational team that can track spending and activities against their overall budget. Your donations help fund everything it takes to deliver these transformative mentoring programs for girls.
Mentoring the Mentors
When a Mentor is hired, she agrees to a two-year contract. During this time, she is a Mentor herself to her Scholars, but she is also a Mentee, receiving personal support, career coaching, and professional development opportunities from long-term, more experienced members of GLAMI’s Staff.
When a Mentor’s time with GLAMI comes to an end, she uses the skills gained from the experience to pursue a career in her chosen field. Usually, Mentors (many of whom are Kisa Alumna themselves) have recently finished university when they are hired, and in Tanzania it can be very difficult for new graduates – especially women – to find employment unless they have significant experience. GLAMI knows that women and girls are capable of anything if they are given the necessary support to grow, and therefore offers as much support as possible by providing real-world experiences in office and teaching environments.
Why do you call GLAMI your sister organization?
Here’s a quick history lesson to help you understand our long relationship!
In 2001, Daring Girls was founded, originally named AfricAid. (You can read about our history here.) In 2010, after working with local stakeholders to develop Kisa Project, AfricAid registered in Tanzania as AfricAid Tanzania in order to hire local staff and deliver programming in schools. Around mid-2018, Tanzanian laws governing NGOs and other non-profit organizations changed, and AfricAid Tanzania was required to re-register as a new organization, under a new name. Thus, the Girls Livelihood and Mentorship Initiative (GLAMI) was born in 2019.
GLAMI has its own Tanzanian Board of Directors, Tanzanian women hold key leadership positions in the organization, and every member of the staff is Tanzanian, almost entirely women, and nearly two thirds of the mentoring staff are alumnae of GLAMI mentoring programs themselves. Even though we’re now Daring Girls and GLAMI, we still see each other as critical partners sharing a vision to help girls develop the skills, confidence, and savvy to dare to become who they want to be.