Pastory
Mswanzali
Pastory Mswanzali is a young man with 33 years of age, working as a caregiver of children at Kayenze Ndogo fishing community-based day care center in Ilemela District. He started this work in 2014 as a volunteer appointed by the community. “I did not have any teaching background, I was a fisherman and I even wondered what to do when I was appointed during a community meeting to start working with young children, I remembered that their choice may be based on organizing sessions at our church for children on Sundays” Pastory said. With interest of working with young children Pastory joined the training sessions of caregivers provided by TAHEA followed by a series of couching and mentorship sessions, back then he was one among the only two male caregivers in the program. His experience of working with children improved, he developed local play materials from the lake shore, organized learning corners, he does better than many female caregivers and has inspired parents to enroll their children and the center leads in enrolment of children reaching 205 children in 2022 compared to other centers, which has posed yet other challenges including space, poor caregiver/ child ratio and more work for Pastory.
Pastory has been consulted by the local leaders to help with identification of a potential area where the community can establish new day care center which can accommodate the large number of children. For TAHEA Mwanza, he is more than a caregiver especially now that ECD practitioners around the world are working so hard to increase male engagement in child care.