Grandma Magic Podcast, Episode 16: Rustica Tembele, The Mother of Diversity
Rustica Tembele shares her journey from growing up in Tanzania, immersed in a culture of cohesion and collective responsibility fostered by the adults and elders in her community, to her enduring career as a civil servant in the country. Throughout her trajectory, she witnessed the erosion of social systems in modern society, compelling her to guide younger generations. Following her retirement from government service, she embarked on a mission to bridge intergenerational and mental health gaps, culminating in the co-founding of the TAP Elderly Women’s Wisdom for Youth (TEWWY). This organization acknowledges the challenges faced by today’s youth and aims to address them by offering mental healthcare services, nurturing supportive communities, and advocating for policy changes to enhance mental healthcare accessibility.
Learn more about Tap Elderly Women’s Wisdom for Youth at https://tewwy.org/.
TRANSCRIPT
Lynsey Farrell (Host): Welcome to Grandma Magic, a podcast from the Grandmother Collective. We are a nonprofit organization that supports and advocates for a world where a grandmother’s power is seen, cultivated, and activated for positive change. The Grandma Magic Podcast is an opportunity to learn more about the unique positions that grandmothers, aunties, and other older women around the world can play in advancing positive social development by talking to and learning from grandmother change makers.
We hope this series inspires you, brings you joy, and helps you recognize the enduring magic and wisdom that comes from grandmothers everywhere. My name is Lynsey Farrell, I’m your host. Today, we’re talking with Rustica Tembele, the co founder of TAP Elderly Women’s Wisdom for Youth, or TEWWY, an organization operating out of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, which focuses on supporting the mental health of young people by engaging older women as mentors and coaches. Rustica had a career in Tanzania’s civil service before turning to this very important work. And today we will learn about some of the challenges and opportunities for engaging older adults in Tanzania. Rustica, asante sana for joining us today.
Rustica Temble: Thank you.
Lynsey Farrell (Host): So Rustica, one of the roles that we know that older women really play in society is as culture holders and culture bearers. and so, one of the things that we talk about a lot at the Grandmother Collective is the rituals or traditions that older women find really important to pass down. I wonder if you wanted to maybe share, something that is important to you, that you really want to make sure the next generation continues.
Rustica Temble: Thank you very much, Lynsey. Yeah, like other countries there in Tanzania, there are rituals or traditions that we followed when we were growing up. Like, for example, in the past, it was forbidden or prohibited. For example, if you find someone with physical ability, you don’t laugh at them. And if you do, some things really happen, you won’t believe it, might not be true. But I remember one woman laughed at young problem. His eyes were, you know, sort of winking, winking, winking. You understand? I do. Yes. Continuously. So she laughed at him and said, Hey, my God, stop staring at me. Why are you winking? I don’t like that. And then, of course, the young man didn’t say anything, but honestly speaking, a year or a year after, she gave birth to a child with winking eyes.
So whether you can believe this or you cannot believe this, but it happened and it’s, my colleague in the office told me he saw this, in the region where he comes from. So. We are saying that we should never, ever laugh at people. After all, the way one is created is the way he’s created or she’s created. So why should you laugh at somebody? And this example shows that our traditional communities had values, which protected the dignity and respect of individuals. Now if you find someone on the street, hey, look at him, look at her. Oh, my God. I would like the young generation to respect other people’s dignity and respect individuals because, and especially the creation. One is born like that. You cannot do anything with the way you’ve been created. So we just encourage people to laugh at people. So this, I find it to be very important to be passed on to our young generation because, well, as you see, I mean, we’ve moved in the cities and so much has been lost, etc.
But also, our traditional communities lived in solidarity. A child was guided, collected by the community in the sense that every elder in that community was a gatekeeper of values and traditions. In that regard, a child was everyone’s else child. In actual sense, There [were] no orphans in the community because of the cohesion and collective responsibility that existed then.
What we are seeing today is a total breakdown of the social systems. I would like to say, maybe it’s the influence of social media, which has diverted the youth from the sustainability of the values of society. That’s bringing them to short values. I mean, you see, I’m not even blaming the youth. I’m But I just remember when I was growing up, I grew up in the village with my grandmother.
And, say you’re walking on the street, you make mistake. An elder, whoever, an elder person will say, Hey, Rustica, what do you think you’re doing? You’re not supposed to do that. He or she wasn’t right to be reprimanded by anybody in the village so that you come up with good culture and values.
So child was everyone’s else child, right? We didn’t choose. So that for me is something that I would love to see it continuing, but now it doesn’t because after all the parents have moved to the cities. So there’s no that culture that, keeps us together, And then also. Traditional, we didn’t have schools, modern schools, we had schools, but not modern schools. Knowledge and society life skills was shared by the elderly in the community. For example, through storytelling, grandmothers imparted knowledge and wisdom to the young generation, sitting around the fire, you hear the stories, and it was just amazing. men provided apprenticeship skills, such as masonry, carpentry, blacksmith provided the knowledge in catering because that’s what they do. Basically, this was done through coaching and mentoring. The whole process is opposed to imparting theoretical knowledge only. Now I can see that disappearing. There’s a lot of theoretical knowledge, but less hand holding, less, transferring skills to the young generation. I find that to be missing.
Lynsey Farrell (Host): Yeah. Learning through doing.
Rustica Temble: Yes. Learning by
Lynsey Farrell (Host): spending time in the kitchen, learning by hanging out with your grandfather as he does his farm.
Rustica Temble: Yes. And that’s why you find a lot of young people when they finish, even they graduate from the university. They don’t have jobs. because they don’t do anything that what they learned from the books. If think maybe the government will change syllabus because, seriously speaking, you graduate and then you leave the university, you cannot yourself.
You wait for a job, which with a job doesn’t come, what do you do? So you find a lot of frustrations, mental health problems, you can’t get a job, then hey, well, you just, get depressed and all that. So, There are many rituals in Tanzania that I think if we could give it to our young generation, they would benefit a lot from that.
Lynsey Farrell (Host): Tell me about your own background. I mean, a lot of people in our audience won’t know the history of Tanzania and, what the education system looks like or, even what the sort of economic situation is. Do you want to share a little bit about your own background and where you came from and how you’ve spent your career.
Rustica Temble: I was brought up in the village, but then I went to primary school, secondary school, and then the university, I came to Dar es Salaam to the city, University of Dar es Salaam. That’s where I graduated. But when I graduated from the University of Dar es Salaam we were offered, I mean, it was very easy to get a job. You’re just offered. Civil service, you know? you don’t get to struggle like what the young people are doing now.
Lynsey Farrell (Host): Was this like post-independence 1960s, 70s. What era is this for you?
Rustica Temble: Yes. Yeah.
Lynsey Farrell (Host): So you went to university in Tanzania in the seventies, you got a job.
Rustica Temble: I got a job get a job, you’re assigned a job, you go to that. I was sent to the Institute of Adult Education as a tutor because my first degree is education. So I was a tutor at the Institute of Adult Education. But I was also, trying to move and see whether there are other greener pastures.
So there was advertisement in the midst of health. I went to the Department of Family Planning and got that job and it was actually funded by, I think by USAID or something. actually during my time is when we, developed or we developed the Green Star, which is use to date for family planning.
I’m proud of that because I was part of designing the Green Star by visiting communities, pre testing what we had developed, etc. And then later on, I ended up at the Commission for AIDS, where I retired. After I retired, I served as a freelance consultant to the Open Society Initiatives for Eastern Africa, which is, I think, is a branch of the Open Society Foundation.
I was working for OSIEA, Health and Rights, supporting marginalized communities. Actually, I went with the groups like, LGBTQ, drug users. Sex workers and all that. I was supporting them. I was helping them prepare proposals and submit to for funding and all that.
And I was, was also mentoring them to do their work. Again, I said, I’m retired. I cannot continue working for OSIEA. I need to start something, looking at the situation in Tanzania. actually what prompted me is, I didn’t want to sit at home and wait to die.
I said, no, I must do something. So I profoundly tapped elder women’s wisdom. Which is an NGO, which was registered in [00:10:00] 2018. I co founded it with my daughter and the aim of this NGO is our focus rather is on mental health. So I am a co founder and the executive director of this NGO, whereby we focus on mental health.
You might want to ask, why did you want to focus on mental health in 2016, 2018? Why? Why mental health? Actually, I read the statistics from the WHO that according to WHO Mental Health Atlas 2014 says more than 45% of the world population lives in a country where there is less than one psychiatrist.
For every 100 people.
Lynsey Farrell (Host): Mm-hmm, .
Rustica Temble: And there are even fewer neurologists. It’s evident that relying solely on specialists to provide the services for people affected by mental, neurological, and substance use disorders would prevent millions of people from seeing the services they need. So I said, yes, this is where I think we can come in like our mission. Our mission is to bridge the intergenerational gap and to bridge the mental health treatment gap, knowing that by then when we started actually asked one psychiatrist, how many psychiatrists are you in Tanzania? In a population of by then it was not 60 million, but now we are 60 above million.
So, I said, TEWWY, or TAP Elderly Women’s Wisdom for Youth, could provide this space before somebody gets really bad and need psychiatric services, they could come to the Elderly Women’s get the wisdom, get the counseling, get the psychosocial interventions, which would help them to, not reach the stage whereby they need a psychiatrist.
So we just wanted to bridge the mental health treatment gap. So we said, we’ll provide the person of counseling and we adopted this From the IPC used to manage manifestations of distress due to common mental health disorders, such as depression, anxiety, somatization, physical illness. But also we do group talk therapy, facilitated by the WWCs. WWCs as the wisdom and wellness counselors who are members of a community, connect, share wisdom experience and strengthen social support. Group therapy is a form of psychotherapy that aims to help people, including young people.
Manage mental health conditions or cope with negative experiences and behaviors. And also we said this psychosocial interventions will also provide psychoeducation resources, which include information given verbally in a counseling session, written material in the form of psychology, tools, information, handouts, guides, exercises, etc.
Or homework tasks where individuals are empowered through self awareness. Actually, we were tired of seeing young people committing suicide because of one reason or the other. They were carrying burdens in their hearts. They didn’t know where to go and release burdens that they had.
We said the women, the wisdom and wellness counselors would be the space for them to come and um, leave their bodies, talk to the women, use the wisdom, the elder women get support. And seriously speaking, we can see the results of our work. Many people come to talk to us through the one on one or group talk therapy and they get treatment that they want because they are our big supporters also. They recognize us as a mental health stakeholder.
Lynsey Farrell (Host): You know, I recall when I lived in East Africa, just north of you, in Kenya, that young who were struggling, Anybody who was struggling, with a mental health challenge, they often didn’t have the language to, say what was going on, So language around trauma, language around depression or anxiety was not part of the. general way of kind of understanding emotions. And there was a lot of stigma around seeking mental health support. And I know Dixon Chibanda in Zimbabwe, who I know you’re inspired by with the Friendship Bench. I know some of that work was really to take away the stigma and go to a community member or, somebody in a social network who is seen as someone that you should be trusting like an older woman.
Is that, the experience that you see in Tanzania? How are you navigating? What I imagine are incredible stigmas around needing mental health support.
Rustica Temble: It’s just recently, I think we’ve started slowly talking about mental health, but we don’t talk about it. It’s surrounded with the stigma and, you know, people don’t even understand what it is. And actually, I remember a case whereby when we started in 2018, youth themselves, Feel that the huge gap between them and the elderly. Mm-Hmm. there’s nowhere that they can talk.
They don’t talk to anybody. They feel like there’s no space for them. They cannot even talk with their parents. Mm-Hmm. In the first day of our work, we met some of the youth in, and they categorically indicated that they are not satisfied in the situation that they are not capable of freely talking or speaking to their parents on different issues facing them.
In this regard, TEWWY took this as a gap to be filled. So we decided to provide space for the young people so that they can freely air their issues related to mental health to our team. included abuse, difficult economic situation, because that is what you hear every day, sexual relationship, matrimonial or family crisis, community crisis, et cetera.
There’s so many things that they’re grappling with. So my experience is really trying to solve the problems that, before young people, it’s prescient. They didn’t know where to send their issues, where to talk their issues to, but now they can talk to them, to TAP Elder Wisdom.
They trust the elderly because there’s confidentiality and more comfortable to talk to elderly people.
Lynsey Farrell (Host): Yeah. We know that there is something about that. they call it a skip generation relationship, That you’ve skipped over your parents to a grandmother or an auntie and that enables you, to share in a different way. And I think maybe the judgment also of older women to children or youth, is a bit more, maybe you tell me if I’m right, is a bit more empathetic, a bit more compassionate, less judgmental. when you’ve lived longer on the earth, you’re able to have a wider perspective, perhaps.
Rustica Temble: Yeah. Actually, when we met this group of young people, let me say maybe what they did, They ones who contributed to the questions that formed the basis of us. A very popular booklet in Tanzania now titled Frequently Asked Questions About Mental Health and Their Responses or Answer.
The young, I mean, they had trust in us. They [the youth] were asking so many questions. You guys are talking about mental health. What is this mental health? if I’ve got this drug problem, or what, who can I approach and be confident that my privacy will be, respected.
So the grandmothers are the ones, are the custodian of the secrets of young people. And the young people like to talk to elder women because they fear. They can protect them. They can give them the wisdom that they need so that can thrive. They can continue to live.
Lynsey Farrell (Host): I’ve definitely heard, the secret keeper role before, and that doesn’t seem to be specific to Tanzania, that it’s a wider space that older women are expected and do hold the secrets of young people. Rustica, I, wonder about your grandmothers or your elderly women that are a part of your group. Again, this language about mental health and what mental health is, I’m certain that you’re having to bring them along on a journey to understand and learn about it. So what are some of your approaches to, helping your older women understand what is facing young people and, the role that they can be playing.
Rustica Temble: when we said we are going to work with elder women, we said, what kind of women are we going to pick? they were from all walks of life, and they didn’t know anything about mental health, to be honest. So they had first to be trained in Psycho because they didn’t know anything about mental health. They know there is a problem, but then how do they deal with it? So they to get training so that they can know how. to go about in counseling people with the problems leading psychosocial support.
So we just didn’t put them to do this job of mentor of counseling without being trained. They were well trained. And also we Continue being mentored, including me, and being coached, including me, by the specialists from the, government, from the, Medical Center, because that’s where the experts are.
But since the process of, training them can, supporting them in understanding how to cancel young people, how to cancel people in need, the elder women have really picked those skills and I don’t find any problems with them. Of course, when we started there were 15 of them.
Those who got trained, but now we have less than 15. They drop out because it’s a hard job. So we are remaining with eight grandmothers, but these are very committed. And I’m not regretting that the others dropped because Sometimes I also feel like dropping out, you know, getting out of this madness.
But then I say, oh my God, I am the one who started it. It gets very difficult sometimes. If don’t get support, it becomes very difficult. And you feel like, honestly, we always say we are doing God’s work. That’s how, you know, when you’re old, you say, oh my God, when I die, I want to leave something behind.
We are doing God’s work. It is difficult. So we are remaining with the eight, but identify some like minded grandmothers who are ready to provide this support to the young generation, to help the people, and also other people, because also in Tanzania, there’s so many children are left alone and you find youth become unguided missiles.
I mean, there’s so many problems that need the support of elder women. Yeah. I’m sure you also have a lot of mothers that need support. There’s an unlimited amount of challenges that older women could take on.
Yes, yes. Beyond the mental health support, I imagine.
Lynsey Farrell (Host): hopefully you continue to inspire and maybe perhaps other organizations arise to solve other challenges.
Rustica Temble: we work very closely with the organizations dealing with, drug abuse. And we’ve trained them to do at least within their organizations to identify, young people in need of support.
We’ve got about six organizations that we are partnering with.
Lynsey Farrell (Host): Yeah. The model itself is transferable, I’m sure, to other spaces and other issue areas. You know, what I find really interesting is, from the very beginning of this conversation, you’ve been talking about acceptance and inclusion in ways that I think are really interesting and often, a counter narrative to what we understand of, what older people think about youth, I’ve worked with young people for a long time and there’s so many stereotypes about youth that they’re lazy or that they’re violent or they’re crazy or they’re unpredictable and somehow, from the very first, you’re really talking about accepting that there is challenges that young people are facing, and it’s not inherent in who they are, but society and economic situation or the urban life or the fact that, you know, you have a very, very young population in Tanzania.
So they are, what did you say, unguided missiles. they call them unguided missiles. Unguided missiles. Fascinating. what do you think has made it so that you have that perspective, that it’s a nonjudgmental [00:23:00] perspective. Where do you think that comes from for you?
Rustica Temble: When I was working for, the Institute of Education, I mean, even the Tanzanian Commission for AIDS.
I was saying, oh my God, how can someone be like this? Also, I was also judgmental, to be honest. In Tanzania it’s The LGBTQ they say it’s not in our culture. so it’s not allowed. But they used to come to Turkey because they’ve got problems like HIV and AIDS because they live in our communities.
So they would come to Turkey and the executive chair would say, Rustica, your people have come here. And then I said, Yeah, and then they would come to Turkey. Yeah, she’ll tell me, your people have come here. So I’ll tell them to come up So they come up there and they start talking about their problems and I just give an ear listening to them and then, Oh my God, I say I need to change.
But also my co-founder once told me one day I remember, I’ll never forget her, she said, mom, who are you to judge others?
Lynsey Farrell (Host): Mm-Hmm. .
Rustica Temble: Let God be the judge. Mm-Hmm. Don’t judge and say, why is that one like that? Why is that one like that? Avoid doing that. Don’t be judgmental. Stop doing that. I remember this words echo in my ears. Every now and then they echo in my ears that I should never be be judgmental. After all, to judge others? So when I was waiting for that, it was so nice when my boss says, Rustica, your people have come. So they come upstairs and talk they’ll talk about this. They’ll talk about, they went to the mosque and then they were being stigmatized and they they were being pointed fingers at.
And then, they were saying, please, can you do something? Because I went, I’ve just come from the mosque. the chief of the mosque was saying, look, we don’t want these people because they’re et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So can you do something about it? I said, that I cannot do, but try to play a low profile in a place where these things are not allowed, please play a low profile.
I cannot do that. Even if I’m working with, you know, you come here and they said, come to me and talk to me, but I brought in the mandate to go and stop them from talking about what they are talking. So we became friends. was, working for OSIEA, for example, I was called the mother of diversity because I didn’t care which young person came to me, from what background they come from, they called me mother of diversity and yeah, I’m still called the mother of diversity because that’s what I’m doing.
And I had an opportunity to talk through the radio, the national radio, TBC, Tanzania Broadcasting Corporation. And when you talk about mental health, you leave your phone there. I’ve been getting endless phone calls from all over the country. Because I left the telephone number. So they call me, oh, I have this problem, I have this, you know, I took a loan.
And now I’ve been, you know, so many problems that they come and tell me, they call me and, know, for some of the problems, if I’m not in other regions, so I link them to the mental health coordinators who are in those regions. Let’s go and see this one. And I called the mental health coordinator, please can you support this person has called me saying she or he has got these problems, please help me to, support them.
Lynsey Farrell (Host): I asked you how you became a non judgmental and then you told me a wonderful story about how you’re the mother of diversity. I mean, it’s beautiful. and I think it seems like a role that you grew for yourself, by exposing yourself to a lot of, different challenges and, it seems to me, you’re living your values.
Rustica Temble: Thank you. I think I am, but then I can say is also working for us. the mental health program that we have at one, we have at one secondary school in Jerusalem is working in accordance to our expectations. The students now show an interest in learning more about mental health. And how to arrest mental health problems when they arise.
Such problems with that, students get is include dealing with anxiety that comes during exams.
Lynsey Farrell (Host): Yeah.
Rustica Temble: Thanks to the program. This is something they did not know before. Overall, all the teachers, there are 42 teachers, they were trained in mental health for five days by this expert from the, Muhimbiri, and the students also were trained, and we’ve got 15 mental health ambassadors in the school, and we see some changes, and even the teacher accepted that Now, beating students has reduced tremendously because instead of punishing the child, they follow the child closely and see his background, oh, is he always coming late to school?
Why is he always sleeping in the, you know, why, why, why? Instead of punishing the child by beating, now they say they’ve reduced that. And even the students say beating is reduced a lot. We are about to finish this project, which was funded by Soil Music Group, and we started in June last year. We are finishing May this year, and we are going to have called a stakeholders meeting and talk about the school, talk about the success of what we feel a success of the school, because I think this school is becoming a unique school.
We are so proud that. We have at least one secondary school, to deal with because anxiety or mental health problems started from 14 years to, 17.
Lynsey Farrell (Host): Yeah. One thing I think that people should know is the, pressure to do well on a secondary school exam and find a way into university is very high.
In African countries where you have a really large youth population and not that many opportunities for economic advancement. So the pressures on young people start very early. What’s so wonderful about that approach also is if you’re teaching the teachers and you’re teaching the students and you’re teaching the older women you take on the role of helping people to name things and give them language and tools to talk about mental health challenges, then they will go on and they will teach others.
Yeah. And so it has a ripple
Lynsey Farrell (Host): effect.
Rustica Temble: we have seen that recently because, in Tanzania, our Secondary education is from one to form four
Lynsey Farrell (Host): mm-Hmm. .
Rustica Temble: And then after that you go to A level, form one to form four is Ordinary level. And then from five and six is A level. So that school has now received some students from a different secondary school, they came for A level. This girl just was surprised to see what is happening at the school and what she heard from the friends, the colleagues at the school, she wanted to become one of the ambassadors coming from a different school where, we not talk about mentors, not talk about anything, but she really wanted to join, we have wellness club, so we supported them to start a wellness club. Which is dealing with, different things, So she wanted to join this club, because she thought some good things were being done there. So it goes to others.
It [ripple effect] spreads very fast, like the, we call like the, summer fire, when you start fire. During summer where the grass is dry, it burns, you’re burning quick like a summer fire.
Lynsey Farrell (Host): well, Rustica, it’s been really wonderful to connect and learn more about what you’re doing and the very, very important role that older women can play and solving a really big challenge.
So I thank you so much for being part of this podcast, but also for being a member of the Grandmother Collective. We’re going to learn a lot from your work.
Rustica Temble: Thank you. I remember you asked one question also, maybe I would love to answer that one. You asked about what have been some of the ways that growing up has changed for young people in Tanzania?
Lynsey Farrell (Host): Oh yeah, I didn’t get to that, but yeah, go for it. Yeah.
Rustica Temble: There is a lot, that growing up has changed for young people in Tanzania today. Diminishing of collective communal care and support for young people. That has diminished and therefore, you leave children become unguided. The collective communal care is lacking.
It has diminished. Negative influence of social media, internet, and globalization. You find now people being glued. Modernization, I’m not against modernization, I’m not against social media, I’m not against anything, but you find that you don’t keep together, you find everybody’s with their phones, etc.
So the togetherness is going away, doing their things. So the negative influence of social media. Loss of knowledge about traditional roots and culture. Loss of identity. Due to parents shifting to the cities, urbanization. I come from southern part of Tanzania.
Now I’m in the city. My children have got no identity. They’ve lost the identity because I shifted from where I grew up. Now I’m in the city. That is a problem also because now where do they belong? my children do not belong anywhere. If you ask what tribe are you?
Say, Mom, I never asked people about tribe. What is a tribe after all? They don’t understand that, but for us that was important because it was an identity, a clan identity or whatever. But also, yeah, there’s a loss of self identity, self esteem, self confidence, and also critical thinking. I feel they’ve lost that. That’s what I think. I think they’re missing that.
Rustica Temble: They’re missing that a lot. Yeah. But then there’s nothing that we can do. But what you are doing, the grandmothers and the young people, this intergenerational linkages is really great because we will bridge the gap that exists between us and the young people.
We are trying, we should try otherwise they will be there alone. And I see a lot. I don’t know where we’ll be going to. So we should try always to make us be with the young people, learn from them because they’ve got a lot of things that we can learn from, but also get from us. at least the traditional cultures, et cetera, so that we are a country with culture, with identity.
Lynsey Farrell (Host): What I find really interesting is that your generation that came up after independence and went to school and was that first generation just, fill out the civil service and think about what a independent Tanzania could look like. You didn’t know the pathways you were forging. You didn’t know what it meant to move to the city. You didn’t know, so I think with some, wisdom that comes from that experience, you’re able to see what could be. Or what should be returned. Of course, you didn’t know that your children weren’t going to have identities.
Rustica Temble: No, I didn’t that. Yeah. I was excited to be in the city, but then, oh my God, where do they belong now? Their Tanzanians.
Lynsey Farrell (Host): We talk a lot about systemic change at the Grandmother Collective, that we really believe that older women, can fix some of the systems that have been broken. So what do you think that TEWWY is doing, to change systems?
Rustica Temble: What TEWWY’s trying to do, or would like to do, advocate of psychosocial interventions at the local government authorities through the Wisdom and Wellness Counsellors, that’s the elder women which is in line with the grandmother’s role played in the past.
So we are trying to advocate for the scaling up, because we are just in Dar es Salaam We would love to see what we are doing being scaled up. But also, we would like to advocate for scaling up of mental health program in schools in order to capture the in school youth since mental health problems are safe to begin from the age 14.
And also would like to conduct TV and radio shows to advocate for mental health agenda in the country. But you asked something, how do you grow the impact? Through the provision of evidence based integrated mental health and social care services in communities, TEWWY’s mental health programs contribute to the sustainable development goals through the means of health such as SDG goals, such as goal three. And 4, 3. 5, 3, 8. Three goals. 17. 17 and goal 17.
Lynsey Farrell (Host): 17 is working together, right? Collaboration. Yes, that’s my very favorite SDG. Yeah, like we really do need to work together, the examples of that school that you’re working in and, grow and scale. so that everybody can experience it. So even though you have eight grandmothers, Or eight older women, your impact is much wider. It is about taking those samples and examples and helping others to see the directions that they could be taking.
Yes. Beautiful. thank you. Well, Rustica, I say this with full genuineness, I’m so delighted that you’ve joined our collective. we have so much to learn from you. and there’s so much work to be done. So much hard, hard work to be done. And, hopefully, others can see that too.
Rustica Temble: And I’m so excited to join the Grandmothers Collective, because I feel we’ve got the same story to tell. Thank you so much, Lynsey. But you are very inspiring also.
Lynsey Farrell (Host): Thank you. Thank you. you know, I worked with youth for like 20 years. But, I worked with youth for so many years.
I love youth. They’re so inspiring. They’re just so full of, energy and life and, Having them as teachers is so awesome and amazing, but this work with older women, whoa, maybe it’s my stage of life, but I feel so optimistic about the future, knowing that women’s leadership, older women’s leadership is out there trying to fix some of our really massive problems. It’s been a really great ride doing this work.
Rustica Temble: Yeah, but still young. Oh, no. I’m not. Yeah.
Lynsey Farrell (Host): No, I’m in the middle. Like, Something happens, I think, when you’re 40. You start thinking, oh my gosh, what have I been doing with my life? Have I done enough? And now that I’m speaking with women like you, I think, oh, there’s so much more to do. There’s there’s so much more life to live. What did you say? I’m not going to go home and die. Wait to die. No,
Rustica Temble: I said, I’m not going to sit down [and] wait to die. I said I’m going out because it’s a going out also helps me to meet people. And it’s amazing. I get benefits. We get benefits also.
Lynsey Farrell (Host): We know a key to longevity is that people have purpose, like a key to living a long life, a long and healthy life is purpose social connection.
Those are proven as important pieces of longevity. So, very much the solution to have older women as leaders in community work. is also for the benefit. it also builds a long life Yes. Yes. Rustica. Thank you so, so, so much. And I am so delighted we finally connected in a really meaningful way.
Rustica Temble: Okay. Thank you so much.
