Leader/Follower Relationships

As I have mentioned in previous blog posts, the leadership structure of Pippi House is highly centralized around Aristides, the founder and leader of the organization. He makes all of the financial decisions, organizes programming and volunteers, and runs all of the PR/media for Pippi House. That being said, there is a lot of informal leadership, at least with my interactions, based on age and proficiency in English. All of the girls answer to Aristides, but he is not always present. In his absence there seems to be a lot of autonomy in the way the women go about their day-to-day lives. I think there is a sense of seniority—the girls who are older and who have been at Pippi House longer have a better idea of the way that things work and have a bigger say in what goes on. I recently found out that they have nightly meetings that can last hours where they all talk about their days and reflect on what has happened/what will happen. Aristides decided this week that they will start holding these meetings in English instead of Swahili because English is one of the subjects that the girls struggle the most with in school. I think the women have very high regard for Aristides. After all, he is providing them with food, shelter, a safe environment to raise their children, and opportunities for schooling/employment. He jokes with them a lot, and they affectionately call him teacher. Even the children have high respect for him, and when he asks them to do something they always listen. As I have mentioned before, Pippi House struggles to find a steady source of income to support all of the girls that live there. I think if this problem gets more attention, it might relieve any tension that falls on the leader/follower relationships. Aristides has told me that he’s had to advise girls against pursuing their dream careers because he can’t afford their schooling. Similarly, there are fees that need to be paid everyday for the girls to get fed at school, but this is something that Pippi House struggles to afford. I think volunteers also are ascribed a lot of leadership when they come to Pippi House. I have been given a lot of freedom to work with the girls on whichever subjects they need help with, and I have also been given the freedom to plan group seminars/start initiatives as I see fit to improve quality of life at Pippi House. This week, my fellow volunteer and I held a sexual and reproductive health seminar for all of the women at Pippi House at one of their nightly meetings. We brought labeled diagrams of the female anatomy in English and Swahili as well as a lesson plan and condoms. We introduced ourselves (some of the women are out all day, so we hadn’t gotten the chance to meet them yet) and then the topic that we planned to cover. At first they were all shy and quiet, but once we got talking about things, they were active listeners and participants in the dialogue. I picked up on a lot of what it means to be a female in Tanzania through the questions that these women were asking. There was a lot of misinformation about birth control, pregnancy, and a man’s right to demand sex. This interaction required a lot of trust on their end, and I feel very lucky to have had the opportunity to bring to light for them some of the information and sexual freedom that I have up to this point taken for granted. I hope that through my work here, I have paved the way for future volunteers to also have meaningful interactions. In Tanzania there is a lot of stereotyping and mistrust of white people, so it can be hard to have meaningful interactions and conversations if you look like me. I hope after this week I have established my presence as a trustworthy and informed resource for the women to use and benefit from.