Music, community, and joy drive real change
A huge dance party is coming to an end in a small village in Pwani district on Tanzania’s coast. For the past two hours, local residents paraded through the village streets singing and beating Gombe drums. Now, in a large clearing, a woman named Sheila motions for everyone to sit down at a large projector screen. The movie premiere will start soon.
It’s an unusual way to start a film about gender bias, inequality, early marriage and other barriers to girls’ access to education in Tanzania. But in Pwani and beyond, local organizations supported by Malala Fund and funded by Pula are finding creative and culturally appropriate ways like this to get people’s attention.
As the film ends, Sheila, Communications and Partnerships Leader at Media for Development and Advocacy (MEDEA), stands before the audience again and asks them: “What did you think about this movie?” How did it relate to your own experience? What can we learn?
Sheila explains that when the community watches the film, “it sparks a conversation within the community, a reflective conversation.” Resonance and immediate action create a ripple effect of change.
Across Tanzania, gender-based violence often forces adolescent girls out of the classroom. This barrier, and others such as child marriage, poverty, conflict and discrimination, prevent girls from completing their education around the world.
Sheila and her team use film and radio programming to address the challenges girls face in their communities. MEDEA’s ultimate goal is to affirm education as a fundamental right for all and to help every member of our community understand how girls’ education contributes to a stronger whole and how to be an ally to our sisters, daughters, granddaughters, friends, nieces, and girlfriends.
Sheila’s story is one of the many that inspired Heart on Fire, a new fragrance from the Pula x Malala Fund collection that blends the warm, earthy spices of Tanzania with a playful and joyful twist. Here’s how Pura uses scent as a tool to connect the world and inspire action.
Partnerships driven by a global mission and focused on local impact
Pura, a fragrance company that recognizes education as both freedom and a human right, has partnered with Malala Fund since 2022. To protect every girl’s right to access and complete 12 years of education, Malala Fund partners with local organizations in countries where educational barriers are greatest. They invest in locally-led solutions because they know that the people closest to the problem are best suited to solve and build lasting solutions. Examples include MEDEA, which works with communities to challenge discrimination against girls and change beliefs about education.
But local efforts can grow stronger and scale with global support. That’s why Pula uses its unique superpower, the power of scent, to connect people around the world and women and girls in their local communities.
The Pura x Malala Fund collection incorporates ingredients naturally found in Tanzania, Nigeria, Pakistan, and Brazil, the countries where the Malala Fund works to address systemic education barriers. Eight percent of net proceeds from the Pura x Malala Fund collection will go directly to the Malala Fund, but beyond financial support, the collection is also a love letter to each unique community, blending notes such as lemon, jasmine, cedarwood, and clove to help move people, stimulate the senses, and draw inspiration and hope from the global movement for girls’ education. Through scent, people can connect to the courage, joy and tenacity of girls and local leaders, while uniting in a common commitment to education and the belief that supporting girls’ rights in one community benefits us all, everywhere.
You’ve already met Sheila. See how Nyala and Mama Habiba are building unique solutions to empower all girls to learn and dream freely.
Niara Leite is reimagining what’s possible in Brazil
In Brazil, where pear trees and coconut plantations cover the entire northeast coast, girls like 10-year-old Julia experience a different kind of educational barrier than girls in Tanzania. Racism too often contributes to the high dropout rates of black, quilombora and indigenous girls in this country.
“The logic of Brazilian society is that black people don’t need to study,” says Niara Leite, executive coordinator of Odara, a women-led organization and partner of Malala Fund. Bahia, where Odara is based, was once one of the largest slave-holding regions in the Americas, and because of that history, deep-seated anti-black prejudice still prevails. “Our role and the image that is built around us is one of physical labor,” says Nyala.
But education can change that. In 2020, the City of Odara, with the help of a Malala Fund grant, launched Ayomide Odara, its first initiative to improve school completion rates for black, quilombola and indigenous girls. The young girls mentored in the program, including Julia, are known as “Ayomides.” And like the scent of Brazil: Breath of Courage from the Pula x Malala Foundation collection, Ayomides is intense, determined and full of energy.
Ayomides will participate in weekly educational sessions exploring topics such as education and ethnic/racial relations. Girls are encouraged to find their voices by creating Instagram Lives, social media videos, and participating in public panels. Already, the Ayomides are rewriting the narrative about what Afro-Brazilian girls can achieve. One of the early Ayomides, a young woman named Deborah, is currently a communications intern. Another former Ayomide, Francine, works for UNICEF and helps develop the next generation of youth leaders. And Julia is already aiming to become a mathematics teacher or a model.
“This is a generation of black women who couldn’t go to school,” Nyala said. “These are a generation of Black women whose dreams have been taken away from them every day. And we’re telling them that they can be the generation that writes new stories in their families.”
Mama Habiba is reshaping the conversation in Nigeria
In Mama Habiba’s home country of Nigeria, the scents of star fruit, ylang-ylang and pineapple featured in the Pula x Malala collection ‘Nigeria: Hope for Tomorrow’ can be found in the vibrant marketplace. Like these native scents, Mama Habiba says Nigerian girls are also bright and passionate, but too often they are forced to leave school long before their full potential is realized.
“Some of these schools are very far away and there are quality issues,” Mama Habiba says. “Most parents notice when their children are in school that their girls aren’t studying. So why keep them in school?”
When girls drop out of junior high school, marriage is often an option. In Nigeria, one in three girls is married before the age of 18. Girls then fail to reach their potential, and families and communities lose out on social, health and economic benefits.
Because marriage is delayed after finishing secondary school, UNESCO says educated girls become women who raise healthier children, lift families out of poverty, and contribute to more peaceful and resilient communities.
To encourage young girls to stay in school, the Girls’ Education Center, a Nigerian nonprofit founded by Mama Habiba and supported by Malala Fund and Pura, is pioneering a safe space initiative similar to Brazil’s Ayomide Workshop. Here, girls meet regularly to learn about issues such as reading, writing, numeracy and reproductive health. These safe spaces also provide opportunities for girls to role-play and assert themselves, develop self-image, and practice having conversations with others about their values, which also includes education. In a safe space, Mama Habiba says, girls “start to understand who they are and that they have value. They have the right to negotiate with their parents about what they really feel and what they want.”
“When a girl is educated, so many opportunities open up,” says Mama Habiba. “It will help the country’s economy. It will boost so many opportunities for the country. I think if they are given opportunities, the sky is not the limit. It is a starting point for every girl.”
From parades and film screenings to safe spaces and educational programs, girls and local leaders are working hard to strengthen the quality, safety, and accessibility of education and overcome systemic challenges. They encourage courageous action and remind us: Education is free.
Experience the Pula x Malala Foundation collection here and connect with the stories of real girls leading change around the world.
