Opinion: Tanzanian kids face a bleak future under lockdown
Anaclet Rwegayura
May 12, 2020
Tanzanian schoolkids need to stay at home during the COVID-19 crisis. They are dependent on a variety of media and technologies for their school lessons. Children living in poverty have — once again — been left behind.
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Education is widely perceived as a stepping stone to Tanzania's goal of catching up with the 'advanced world' and building a middle class.
As the the COVID-19 pandemic prevents people from moving about freely, cutting off physical contacts, new ways of learning and educating young people in isolation have become a central issue.
It may be some time before children around the world can go back schoolImage: Imago/F. Stark
No access
The shutdown of schools has led to a new reliance on modern technology for virtual learning, shutting out thousands of poorer pupils from online lessons. Radios are considered unfashionable and many families cannot afford to buy a computer or a television for their children's education.
Why millions of kids face a bleak future
Some 180 million children worldwide are more likely to live in extreme poverty, be deprived of basic education or suffer a violent death than their parents, according to a 2017 UNICEF report. DW takes a look.
Image: picture-alliance/AA/E. Sansar
Children in 37 countries left behind
UNICEF's analysis focused on children's chances of escaping extreme poverty, getting a basic education and avoiding a violent death. It showed that 37 countries have seen a clear decline in at least one of those areas in the past two decades. The main causes? Unrest, conflicts, financial crises and poor governance.
Image: picture-alliance/NurPhoto/M. Moskwa
Not in my parents' footsteps
There have been major efforts to improve child welfare around the world over the past two decades. But despite progress, millions of children still face massive challenges caused by factors outside of their control. According to a 2017 UNICEF report, one in 12 of the world's 2.2 billion children has far bleaker prospects today than the previous generation did 20 years ago.
Image: picture-alliance/AA/E. Sansar
Consequences of conflict
According to UNICEF, the Central African Republic, South Sudan, Syria and Yemen — all countries experiencing major conflict — have seen a decline across more than one of the three areas measured. The most dramatic change, however, was recorded in the world's newest nation, South Sudan.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/Y. Arhab
South Sudan
South Sudan was the only country where children fared worse in all three categories than previous generations. After gaining independence in 2011, the country has been plagued by civil war and famine. Four-year-old Adeng Macher, pictured above, is one of an estimated 2 million people who are near starvation.
Image: picture-alliance/ZUMA Wire/M. Juarez Lugo
Growing up with war
Violent deaths among children below the age of 19 have increased in seven countries: Central African Republic, Iraq, Libya, South Sudan, Syria, Ukraine and Yemen. Above, armed Yemeni children ride in the back of a truck with soldiers loyal to President Hadi. The UN says hundreds of children have been killed in the country since 2015, while more than 1,000 have been recruited as child soldiers.
Image: Getty Images/AFP/S. Al-Obeidi
Surviving on under $1.90 a day
The share of people living on less than $1.90 (85 euro cents) a day has increased in 14 countries, including Benin, Cameroon, Madagascar, Zambia and Zimbabwe. According to the UN, around 19 percent of the world's children live in extreme poverty.
Image: STEPHANE DE SAKUTIN/AFP/Getty Images
A chance in the classroom
The number of children getting a primary school education has dropped in 21 countries, including Syria, Bolivia, Jordan and Tanzania. The problem is most acute in West and Central Africa. Above, students take part in an English class in Bentiu, South Sudan, in 2011. Violence in the country has forced a quarter of schools to shut down, preventing an estimated 2 million kids from attending class.
Image: Getty Images/AFP/R.Schmidt
World Children's Day
UNICEF's report was released on World Children's Day, which celebrates the anniversary of the adoption of the Convention on the Rights of the Child on November 20, 1989.
Image: Welthungerhilfe
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Digital life
Many Tanzanians watch radio and TV broadcasts on their cellphones. Those children who own phones usually have low-budget models that don't support the apps they need for their education programs. The government, which used to provide radios to communities, stopped doing so many years ago.
A mobile phones is therefore the most likely platform for a learner under lockdown during the COVID-19 crisis.
Face masks are mandatory in Tanzania's public transportationImage: DW/S. Khamis
How to cope with sudden change
For students, communication is crucial for success because it ensures guidance and supervision by teachers. But can the youth cope with the sudden change of routine?
Keeping up-to-date with virtual video lessons is often an issue because not everybody has access to a constant electricity supply. Even those homes and institutions with power suffer from frequent outages.
Students with the necessary technology — and the means to power it — are willing and able to forge ahead in pursuit of their education.
Turning face masks into a fashion statement in Africa
Who says face masks have to be bland? In Africa, fashion designers are injecting some style into masks to help tackle the coronavirus pandemic — encouraging mask use while letting people show some individuality.
Image: Getty Images/AFP/F. Belaid
Masks with personality in Algeria
Mounia Lazali, a designer in Algeria, has sewn and donated hundreds of masks – singer Joe Batoury models one of her designs, above. She told DW people "want to assert their culture and their tastes, so I think that the mask will not escape the fashion effect. If that can encourage people to protect themselves more, art will have succeeded in its mission by entering citizens’ everyday lives."
Image: Mizo Ozim
Tackling mask shortages in Rwanda
Rwanda-based tailor Alexander Nshimiyimana (second from left, above) told DW he has been producing colorful masks like these because of the stock shortages in the country. Nshimiyimana has tried to keep the price of his masks as affordable as possible so that more people can get access to one. His masks sell for around 50 US cents – while those in Rwanda's pharmacies retail for around US $2.
Image: Alexander Bell Nshimiyimana
Splashes of color in Liberia
Liberia-based The Bombchel Factory is an ethical fashion company which helps its all-female staff to become self-sufficient by offering them training in making garments. It is turning unsold skirts into bright face masks like this one, above. For every purchased mask, another gets donated to someone unable to quarantine at home – because they don’t have anywhere to stay.
Image: Marcelle Yhap
Stylish masks in Kenya
Kenyan fashion designer David Avido (above), founder of the label 'lookslike avido,' poses with a mask he made, created from leftover cloth. Since the first coronavirus case was confirmed in Kenya in March, 'lookslike avido' has so far created and distributed more than 10,000 masks for free to communities in and around the Kenyan capital Nairobi.
Image: Getty Images/AFP/G. Odhiambo
Cameroon sister designers do their bit
Ange Goufack (left) and her sister Edmonde Kennang (right) have been producing these colorful face masks in Cameroon, with added plastic across the eyes. Since April 13, the government there has made it mandatory for people to wear face masks in public to slow the spread of the coronavirus.
Image: Edmonde Kennang
Donating masks to hospitals in Tunisia
When the coronavirus crisis started, Tunisian designer Myriam Riza (above, adjusting a mask at the workshop of her Miss Anais label) was contacted by hospitals suffering from mask shortages. She produces the masks and distributes them to hospitals using donated fabric. To offset the cost of continuing to provide free masks to clinics, Riza decided to create masks for individual paying customers.
Image: Getty Images/AFP/F. Belaid
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Opportunities arise from the crisis
The COVID-19 crisis also provides many teachers with an unexpected opportunity to incorporate information and communication technologies into virtual lessons. If teachers fail to add to their skillsets, they are likely to add to the growing list of roblems posed by the pandemic.
While the situation is a challenging one, it also provides an opportunity for those who are willing to take the lead. Urban populations around the world are bound to adapt to the new way of working, but what is seen my many as a temporary measure could quite easily become a permanent one.
It took just three months for the world to realize how much of an invisible, silent menace the coronavirus was. Not only has it killed hundreds of thousands of people, it had also thrown the lives of millions into disarray and upset the prospects of a similar number of young people.
Protect cyberspace
Everybody has a story to tell about the disease that is challenging all businesses and professions. Now is the time for Africa's young generation to show how it can help by designing apps and providing new services.
For instance, every students need their own textbooks which they cannot share with others in order to avoid contagion. Printers should start churning out books for the whole nation. Booksellers and stationers everywhere must be well-stocked.
We have to make sure that we flatten the infection curve. But we also need to do more to guard against malicious online activities that target public institutions, which could include the education sector. The pandemic has helped reveal our weaknesses as individuals and as a nation. It is time to react quickly and prepare because, the worst may not be far off.
