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The Team Tanzania

A Platform to Empower Gender Equality


Coming in February 2013 - The Team-Tanzania!


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WATCH THE TEAM!

  • The Team debuts on Thursday Night 21 February at 9 PM on EATV in Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda.

Project Approach

The Team TV Drama

In many ways, Tanzania has a model legal system for addressing gender issues. Gender equality is enshrined in the country’s constitution. Yet, there is a gap between legal edicts and practice, as cultural restraints and customary laws render women marginalised and vulnerable. To address this gap, SFCG, with support from KPMG Advisory Limited Tanzania, through the DFID-funded Accountability in Tanzania Programme, is implementing an eighteen-month project, The Team. The goal of the project isto contribute to strengthening the implementation and enforcement of gender-sensitive legislation in Tanzania.  In Feb 2012, SFCG conducted a curriculum development process that involved consultations with stakeholders from different parts of the country on barriers to achieving this goal. Based on these discussions, SFCG developed the content of The Team series, which focuses on gender roles and identity within society, equally engaging women and men.

Strategy for response: The Team Tanzania

The Team is an innovative drama, broadcast on TV and radio, which uses the fictionalised stories of young male and female footballers to reflect on gender equality in Tanzania. It specifically focuses on the following  priority issues:

  • Women’s consideration in inheritance issues
  • Women’s leadership
  • Gender-based violence (GBV)
  • Retention of girls in secondary school
  • Identity of men and women

For Tanzania to survive and prosper, all Tanzanians need to work together as a team – men and women equally.”

The Team is a platform for men and women, to engage in empowering and proactive discussions around gender inequality. This is accomplished by identifying key attitudes and behaviours embraced by both men and women which limits their ability to engage equally. The series showcases success stories and positive role model. The series aims to engage and transform society’s gender norms, through participatory activities and community outreach work.


THE TEAM VISION

Create a societal shift in the way that gender issues are discussed, understood and addressed.

MISSION STATEMENT

Modelling locally-rooted solutions to show how to overcome :

  1. The customary and traditional attitudes that undermine the country’s gender-sensitive laws

  2. The prevailing attitudes of men and women that are a barrier to women’s rights in Tanzania

MISSION OBJECTIVES

  1. To foster an enabling environment to advance female roles in decision-making

  2. To promote knowledge and attitudes favourable to women’s well-being at the individual level

  3. To contribute to local and international initiatives aimed at advancing gender equality.

Five Main Activities

The Team TV Drama

1. Consultation Workshops and Baseline Assessment

While developing the project, SFCG conducted a baseline analysis and held workshops with local stakeholders, in order to understand the specific core attitudes and behaviours affecting women’s rights, their well-being, and participation in local and national decision-making. These steps ensured the project is both relevant to and rooted in the Tanzanian context. They also allowed for the development of context-aware key messages and themes representative of different perspectives and regions of the country.


The Team TV Drama Series:

The Team introduces Ms. Wito, a dynamic civics teacher, who turns the world of 3 teenagers upside down when she challenges them with controversial questions like “Who are you?” The three 16-year olds, who have known each other all their lives. On the edge of adulthood, they are searching for their own identities while facing family and cultural pressures.

2. The Team: Television series

The Team television series was produced by Alkemist Media, with co-production support from Common Ground Productions. The 13-episode series will be broadcast nationally. Set in a Tanzanian secondary school, the programme addresses gender issues prevalent in Tanzania, such as rape and impunity; early marriage and teenage pregnancy; and various gender stereotypes, while focusing on the empowerment of young girls to make choices that will improve their lives and the life of women in Tanzania.


The Team Radio Drama Series:

The main character is Dr. Atu, who moved to a rural area after the Government appointed her to work as a medical doctor in the Malele village. Dr. Atu, who loves soccer, decides to form a female soccer team to promote collaboration between the village youth. Throughout the series, the team will prove to be a tool to solve various community issues.

3. The Team: Radio Production

The radio production company B-HITZ, with support from SFCG, has produced a total of 50 radio episodes of The Team. The series, which is also called “Wamoja”, is set in a rural area, reflecting the reality of its audience. It addresses gender stereotypes and seeks to positively transform gender norms.

4. Outreach Campaign

SFCG will work with PUSH Mobile and Social Media experts to launch and sustain a multi-pronged marketing strategy in order to attract the maximum number of viewers and ensure that the key target audience watches the programme.

SFCG will also work with local partners to implement an outreach campaign in order to maximise the impact of the television and radio show. Activities such as mobile theatre or SMS monitoring will engage a cross section of stakeholders into discussions on the main themes of the programme and increase dialogue in society around gender equality.

5. Monitoring and Evaluation

Using an array of qualitative and quantitative research methods, an external evaluator will assess the intervention and its impact on those reached through a final evaluation which will focus on identifying the projects’ results.


The Team has received funding from the following:

Skoll FoundationUnited Kingdom Foreign & Commonwealth Office USAIDU.S. Department of State USIP European Union