Finding Her Voice in Tanzania: Halima’s Story

In a small village in Morogoro, Tanzania, 12-year-old Halima starts her day early. Before walking to school, she helps fetch water and make breakfast. After school, she returns home to chores and farming, tending the sweet potatoes her family grows.

Halima is active, curious, and competitive. She loves netball, handball, running, hopscotch, as well as the arts. Last semester, her good grades set her apart from many other students in her class.

But when Halima imagines her future, she pictures doing something else she loves: telling stories.

“I want to study hard, tell the stories of our village, and show how we can achieve great things together,” she says.

Halima dreams of becoming a journalist. In her own family, she is already surrounded by stories worth telling.

Her aunt Tausi, who has raised her, is a farmer, and her grandmother, Zainabu, is a community health worker. The family once struggled with both farming and nutrition when pests damaged Tausi’s traditional sweet potato harvests, making it harder to provide for the family.

Through Feed the Children’s work in their community, the family received supplies to grow more durable, orange-fleshed sweet potato plants and joined nutrition and agricultural programs. The new crop strengthened Tausi’s harvest and improved the family’s diet. Tausi also became a lead mother in the program, sharing what she learned with other women in her community.

In Halima’s story, food is about more than a single meal. It begins in the soil, connects farming and nutrition, and creates a ripple effect as her family’s knowledge helps many others.

Halima sees that example up close. “I am happy that my mother and grandmother help so many people,” she says. “I want to grow up and make a difference, too.”

In Morogoro, a future journalist is taking notes — ready to tell her village’s stories and to write about the progress communities can make when they have the tools to move forward together.

But before Halima can tell those stories tomorrow, she needs the chance to learn and grow today.

It all begins with food.