Background
Secondary Education for Girls’ Advancement (SEGA) is a Tanzanian non-profit organization (NGO) located near Morogoro town. SEGA has been operating since 2007 as a non-profit company and in 2019, SEGA became registered as an NGO bearing registration No. 00NGO/R2/000232. SEGA envisions a Tanzania where girls are confident OR possess confidence and women succeed in learning, earning, and leading social change. SEGA implements its activities with additional technical and financial support from Nurturing Minds, a United States 501(c)(3) non-profit organization (NGO) that is dedicated to improving the lives of Tanzanian girls through education
Mission
SEGA educates and equips bright Tanzanian girls with academic, leadership, and business skills to unleash their individual talents and reach their full potential. With a particular emphasis on vulnerable girls, SEGA provides full scholarships for at least 50% of its student body
Our Story
Nurturing Minds and the SEGA Girls’ Secondary School started in 2007 as the dream of two colleagues, one American, Polly Dolan, and one Tanzanian, BlastusMwizarubi. They wanted to provide an opportunity for marginalized Tanzanian girls to escape poverty and exploitation, and receive a quality education; to empower girls with skills and credentials needed to thrive in Tanzanian society.
Polly had been living and working in Tanzania for 10 years on girls’ empowerment and education issues. Similarly,Blastus had many years of experience working in the field of girls’ education, designing and implementing large-scale programs that strengthened teacher capacity; bolstering the role of parents and communities for quality education advocacy; and designing interventions to improve access and quality for girls.
Together they decided that a girls’ boarding school, which provided scholarships to girls, would help them achieve their goals. The two worked with local stakeholders to form Secondary Education for Girls’ Advancement (SEGA) in 2007.
During that time, Polly also reached out to her sister Tracey, and close friends in the US, asking them to help form Nurturing Minds, Inc., a US-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit to conduct fundraising and provide technical support to the endeavor. Nurturing Minds was founded in 2008 and Tracey devoted herself full-time to developing the organization.
SEGA soon obtained 23 acres of land in Morogoro, and a local Tanzanian family donated an additional 7 acres so that today the school sits on a 30 acre plot. They then launched their first program in a borrowed classroom at a local primary school for 30 girls in July 2008.
Over the past 16 years SEGA and Nurturing Minds have successfully developed the SEGA Girls’ Secondary School which today reaches 290 girls on its beautiful campus with the majority on full scholarship. The campus infrastructure has been funded with extensive financial support from USAID’s American Schools and Hospitals Abroad (ASHA).
Our Focus Area
SEGA Girls Secondary school
SEGA Girls’ Secondary School provides quality holistic secondary education for girls in Form I up to Form IV.
- SEGA follows the NECTA curriculum, with tracks of Arts, Sciences or Commerce
- SEGA’s Entrepreneurship Program provides business planning and hands-on skills development through SEGA’s business club, poultry, student canteen, honey processing/beekeeping unit, sewing, and other projects
- The Education for Life department offers students counselling, personal development, public speaking and leadership skills
• Secondary School Scholarships: SEGA provides scholarships to at least 50% of its students, based on merit and economic criteria. Only students who are recruited, verified and selected through SEGA’s selection process and reside within the specified geographic regions are eligible for economic scholarships each year
• Students body:
- 66% of students are awarded full scholarships based on financial hardships and/or vulnerability
- 18% of students are studying under academic scholarships
- 17% of students are paying
Post Form IV Scholarships:
SEGA prepares its students for life after Form IV, through career counselling, internships and continuing education scholarships for eligible graduates to pursue “A-Levels” and university studies.
Modern Girl Program::
Secondary Education for Girls’ Advancement (SEGA) provides vulnerable girls in Tanzania withopportunities to advance by equipping girls and young women with the skills, credentials, andmindset to succeed. SEGA’s Modern Girl Community Outreach Program, known as MsichanawaKisasa (MK) in Swahili, operates girls’ clubs, led by young women from the community who either graduated from The SEGA Girls Secondary School, or who had formerly participated in and graduated from an MK girls’ club. The program develops the leadership and mentoring skills of the young women who are mentors, while increasing the knowledge, skills, and awareness of Modern
Girl participants in key areas such as communication, self-confidence, sexual and reproductive health, financial literacy and entrepreneurship, awareness of their rights and networking opportunities, as well as community engagement. Since starting in Morogoro in 2016, Modern Girl has expanded to reach around 1800 girls aged 12 to 23 years old in six districts of the Morogoro,Iringa, and Dodoma regions annually
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Our Partners :
