Tanzania Widows Association (TAWIA)

About us

Tanzania Widows Association (TAWIA) was established and officially registered in October, 2014. Its headquarters are located at Kinyerezi – Kibaga, Dar es Salaam,Tanzania.

The main goal is to organize all widows, a huge but marginalized group of people in Tanzania, to join force and form a national movement in order to identify and air out challenges they face hence combined efforts to work for solutions.

Vision
To provide a conducive environment for the social and economic advancement of widows.

Mission
Tanzania Widows Association (TAWIA) exists to promote and facilitate advancement through development projects.

The specific objectives and mandate of the organization:
• To establish and provide vocational and trainings to widows and their so as to build children capacity and skills for the development.
• To prepare seminars, conferences, workshops, conventions, concerts and different events for the purposes of bringing widows together to and join efforts for their socio economic advancement.
• To raise funds for supporting widows in their establishment initiatives of the business and also for financing the widows children who can´t afford to pay for their academic expenses.
• To pioneer the establishment, coordination and supervision of different development projects which will be beneficial to widows and provide assistance to widows and their children.
• Increase and make more emphasis on the war against HIV AIDS through the provision of HIV AIDS awareness education to widows, elimination of stigma and provision of support to the HIV AIDS victims.
• To raise more funds and support for our work from the general public identified groups, communities, donors as well as governments and private organizations.
• Do all lawful acts and things that are conducive to or necessary for, the attainment of all or any of the objectives of organization.

Projects:
Widows Economic Empowerment
TAWIA believed that Widows economic empowerment is a sensitive area that if tackled effectively we will be able to transform lives of many widows.
There has been a syndrome that widows are beggars who should always move from one point to another seeking for aims and aids. While assisting them is a blessing to the giver, we translate this as giving a fish to the hungry rather than giving her fishing gears and teach her to fish.
It is under this phenomenon that TAWIA designed a project in Dar es Salaam to sensitize widows and raise their awareness so that they become willing to be engaged and to own the project.
TAWIA organized a meeting with more than 500 widows in which we made Widows Economic Empowerment needs assessment and in this gathering we prioritized their economic activities and assessed their areas of needs. The priorities that emerged showed that widows had a need to be empowered in capacity on the following areas: Agriculture; Livestock farming; Tailoring; Basic computer application knowledge; Basic language (English) course; Business administration, Self development skills.

Michael Samuel Kyande is the Director of Finance and Administration of the Tanzania Widows Association (TAWIA).

For other net participants we can offer an expert guidance through trained staff, give an expert opinion, procure expert information and establish new contacts in the field of our work.