The story of Firelight’s grantee-partner Amani illustrates the power of helping our partners take part in CBO-to-policymaker networks

In 2014, Firelight began funding Amani Girls Home as part of our early childhood development initiative cohort in Mwanza, Tanzania. Realizing girls’vulnerability, difficulties at school and poverty were determined far earlier in life, Amani decided to focus on early childhood development (ECD), founding an ECD center for young girls from the poorest families.

With Firelight’s support, Amani deepened its work, establishing and improving more community-owned ECD centers, working with international experts to train ECD teachers, mobilizing parents to send their children to ECD centers, and educating community members and local authorities on the importance of early childhood development. Today, parents actively contribute to nutrition programs and provide teaching and learning materials – games, desks, chairs – to these ECD centers.

An essential part of Firelight’s capacity building support went toward creating and deepening Amani’s connections to local, national, and international networks. On the local level, Firelight enables Amani’s participation in the peer network coordinated by Firelight Lead Partner TAHEA (Tanzania Home Economics Association). This network of Firelight CBO grantee-partners comes together to share experiences and to discuss challenges that arise at the community level.

Firelight also supported Amani Girls Home to be part of the Tanzanian “All In All Learning Network” established by Comic Relief. This network brings together Tanzanian civil society organizations –within and beyond the Firelight cohort – to develop their skills around program development and to exchange learnings.

Amani has served as the chair of the Mwanza regional branch of the Tanzania ECD Network (TECDEN) and on the network’s National Steering Committee. As part of this national network, Amani connects with national partners and international bodies such as the World Health Organization, UNICEF and Children in Crossfire. Importantly, Amani worked with this network to develop Tanzania’s National Plan of Action for ECD. As a network participant, Amani plays a dual role: listening and learning in order to consolidate information to bring back to local peer network meetings while also amplifying the voice of community in these national-level conversations.

Firelight understands that community-based organizations deserve a seat at the table in national conversations about their communities, and we prioritize funding our CBO grantee-partners to join these national networks and have their perspectives heard.

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