Consoler Eliya is a social worker, holder of Masters Degree in Social work and bachelor’s in sociology. She was born on 9th January 1983 in Kagera but originally hails from Kilimanjaro region and is married with two kids. She is the founder and C.E.O of the New Hope for Girls Organization (NHGO) operating in Tanzania.
REASONS FOR ESTABLISHMENT
The idea for the establishment of New Hope for Girls Organization was proposed by Consoler Eliya. When she was a child, she lived with her aunt in Dar es Salaam for 7 years a normal practice in many parts of sub-Saharan Africa. At that time her parents were living far away in rural Kagera region northwest of Tanzania.
The years with her aunt were full of mistreatment and torture. She was made to sleep in the store cupboard and woken up with very cold water every morning. Her aunt beat her with an electrical iron box cord or broomstick while naked and fed her rotten food from the dustbins. She loved to go to school but instead was made to walk her younger cousin to a different school which was far away every day; so she had only two hours to attend school out of every 8 hours on a normal school day schedule. When she turned 11years, she was told by her aunt that since she was a girl, there was no need to go to school anymore instead she proposed a man who was to marry her, and claimed that the man was rich and will take good care of her since he owned a bicycle and was a newspaper vendor. At that time, she was hardly even a teenager. So, Consoler prayed that God would spare her and rescue her, and wrote a letter to God telling him that if he would rescue her, then she would give her life to serve other vulnerable girls in her community and God surely rescued her. It happened that her father wrote a letter to a friend, who was an official at a certain school asking for his daughter to be enrolled eventually the request was accepted and Consoler was enrolled into a good secondary school without going through an interview, despite having only a basic ability to read, write and simple arithmetic. Up until then she had been begging for school fees at the town offices, and been refused, and constantly accused of being a prostitute.
Later on, her aunt found out where she was schooling and bribed few teachers into maltreating her. One day, as she arrived at school she was beckoned into a private room where her aunt was waiting, and the teachers locked the door behind her and she was beaten by all the three teachers and her aunt for 8 hours. At the end, she was in a horrific state and since the threats to beat her more continued she decided to escape. Her only hope was to make it to where her parents were. She somehow avoided the police who had also been bribed by her aunt and were looking for her and she made it to Mwanza. In the bus, she met a man who claimed to be a resident of Mwanza, and seemingly a trustworthy man who promised to accommodate her in his house where he was living with his family, but all that was a lie. Instead, he took her to a motel where he produced a condom, assuring her that she wouldn’t get HIV AIDS if she would sleep with him. She refused and prayed to God for protection. He attempted to force her but she screamed and the guy pushed her outside the room to avoid more problems. Miraculously she made it back to the boat station and jumped onto one of the boats to Kagera. She was with her parents only a short while before she was admitted to KCMC hospital in Kilimanjaro where she was admitted for six months, to recover from all her injuries. Today Consoler has a serious back problem that hinders her from performing various activities and she was affected by her nerves that led her to develop an eye problem and always suffering from a headache.
Since then she had a living desire to help other girls facing the same trauma. Upon joining University in 2005, she started supporting some of the vulnerable girls who were denied rights to education. She supported them by giving them school fees and some other small school facilities, using part of the allowance given to her for meal and stationeries. She has dedicated life, time and energy to work for vulnerable girls and marginalized young women in Tanzania. In May 2010 Consoler organized committed individuals with whom they registered an NGO called “New Hope for Girls Organization” aiming to officialize all activities and reach a large number of vulnerable groups of underprivileged girls and marginalized young women in Tanzania.