Usta’s Story
Usta Thomas’ story is featured in African Initiatives’ BBC Radio 4 Appeal on New Year’s Day 2012. Here it is, in 
her own words, as told to Lizz Pearson, a freelance BBC journalist who travelled to Tanzania meet girls like Usta and learn more about the challenges they face while they are forced to sleep in ghettoes – unsupervised dormitories for girls at schools.
"Life in the ghettoes is so hard... We normally sleep at 10pm so that we can wake up early to study, but staying in the ghettoes we are forced to stay awake from midnight because the drunk men from the village always try and break in.
"What they want is to rape us. And if we run away from them, and they don’t succeed, they take everything they can find... money, books, even the mattress. They take everything. That’s what life is like in the ghettoes.
"Security here is poor and these drunks know they won’t be caught even if we scream for help people hardly come to our rescue.
"Once, some men broke in. There were seven of them, and they split up... And they started rounding us up, making us go outside in the courtyard, so they could do with us what they wanted. But we managed to run away. The police did get involved but they never caught them. I know two other girls who were raped as well, and the police were told about what happened to them, but they never caught those men either.
"I can't study, so I haven't been doing very well at school. My performance is getting worse and worse. It's because I lie awake at night, thinking, maybe tonight they'll come and break in... And that means I'm also too afraid to study. And because I'm afraid I can't sleep either. And then in classes, I can hardly keep awake, just because I couldn't sleep the night before. So I'm doing badly at school because I'm tired, and because I can't study at home.
"I feel like dropping out. We are very poor and my mother is the only provider, it’s a constant struggle to get school fees as she has to take care of my other siblings. Sometimes I have to miss school for a whole month as she looks for school fees.
"The men who broke in to rape us, they break in to our houses again and again, and no one can touch them because they know it's like 7 kilometres to the police station from the ghettos, so by the time the police get here, well, they'll be finished won't they? So they just do what they like. There's no security for us at all."
But things are changing...
African Initiatives and our partners are working with the girls, their schools and their communities to tackle the obstacles put in between girls and their education. Hostels are being built next to schools, with matrons to supervise them; girls’ clubs are being set up in every school to provide a safe space for young women to talk about taboo issues like rape; and work is being done with the communities to change attitudes. As one mother told Lizz:
"A girl's education is very important, more important even than for a boy. A boy can be given a farm to look after, or he can move to another town to find work. But a girl can't do that, she can't do hard physical work, so she has to be educated. Once she's educated, and finds a job, she can get on and help herself."
Usta has recently moved into a hostel and continues to study hard with the other girls in her form who share her dormitory. She is doing well. She is safe. But there are many other young women who remain at risk in ghettoes. That’s why this appeal is so important. It could change so many more lives.
Usta’s Story
Usta Thomas’ story is featured in African Initiatives’ BBC Radio 4 Appeal on New Year’s Day 2012. Here it is, in her own words, as told to Lizz Pearson, a freelance BBC journalist who travelled to Tanzania meet girls like Usta and learn more about the challenges they face while they are forced to sleep in ghettoes – unsupervised dormitories for girls at schools.
"Life in the ghettoes is so hard... We normally sleep at 10pm so that we can wake up early to study, but staying in the ghettoes we are forced to stay awake from midnight because the drunk men from the village always try and break in.
"What they want is to rape us. And if we run away from them, and they don’t succeed, they take everything they can find... money, books, even the mattress. They take everything. That’s what life is like in the ghettoes.
"Security here is poor and these drunks know they won’t be caught even if we scream for help people hardly come to our rescue.
"Once, some men broke in. There were seven of them, and they split up... And they started rounding us up, making us go outside in the courtyard, so they could do with us what they wanted. But we managed to run away. The police did get involved but they never caught them. I know two other girls who were raped as well, and the police were told about what happened to them, but they never caught those men either.
"I can't study, so I haven't been doing very well at school. My performance is getting worse and worse. It's because I lie awake at night, thinking, maybe tonight they'll come and break in... And that means I'm also too afraid to study. And because I'm afraid I can't sleep either. And then in classes, I can hardly keep awake, just because I couldn't sleep the night before. So I'm doing badly at school because I'm tired, and because I can't study at home.
"I feel like dropping out. We are very poor and my mother is the only provider, it’s a constant struggle to get school fees as she has to take care of my other siblings. Sometimes I have to miss school for a whole month as she looks for school fees.
"The men who broke in to rape us, they break in to our houses again and again, and no one can touch them because they know it's like 7 kilometres to the police station from the ghettos, so by the time the police get here, well, they'll be finished won't they? So they just do what they like. There's no security for us at all."
But things are changing...
African Initiatives and our partners are working with the girls, their schools and their communities to tackle the obstacles put in between girls and their education. Hostels are being built next to schools, with matrons to supervise them; girls’ clubs are being set up in every school to provide a safe space for young women to talk about taboo issues like rape; and work is being done with the communities to change attitudes. As one mother told Lizz:
"A girl's education is very important, more important even than for a boy. A boy can be given a farm to look after, or he can move to another town to find work. But a girl can't do that, she can't do hard physical work, so she has to be educated. Once she's educated, and finds a job, she can get on and help herself."
Usta has recently moved into a hostel and continues to study hard with the other girls in her form who share her dormitory. She is doing well. She is safe. But there are many other young women who remain at risk in ghettoes. That’s why this appeal is so important. It could change so many more lives.