Category: African Leadership Academy

  • Tanzanian parents struggle with misconceptions of autism

    Tanzanian parents struggle with misconceptions of autism

    The nurse hands the newborn child to his mother, Jamila, who smiles down at him, mesmerized by the tiny being who is about to bring hope and joy to the family. Juma, the proud father, laughs with delight at getting a son, a symbol of pride.

     It feels like the beginning of a perfect future. The whole neighbourhood is celebrating.

    “Say ‘mama’.”

    “Come, walk to me.”

    “Can you count one to three?”

    But all the relatives begin to worry when, four years later, the child still can’t talk or walk and he behaves differently from the other children around him.

    The neighbours begin to whisper, quietly spreading false rumours about the family.

    “Evil spirits must have attacked them.”

    “They are being punished for their sins.”

    Unable to face the embarrassment, Juma refuses to take responsibility and eventually leaves. Jamila is then left alone to carry the weight of raising her child in silence, shame and confusion.

    This is the reality for many families in Tanzania who have a child with autism.

    Neema Massawe, the mother of a six-year old with both autism and cerebral palsy, shared her experience. “My child is a lovely six-year old, born with a condition described by doctors as cerebral palsy and autism,” Massawe said. “She has difficulties with movements and speech, and can only be helped.”

    Ignorance is the problem.

    As of 2023, less than 1% of the population of Tanzania is diagnosed with autism, but that’s more than 600,000 people. Still, public awareness of the condition remains alarmingly low, particularly in rural areas where access to diagnosis and support services is even more limited.

    For many children with autism in Tanzania, their struggle goes beyond their developmental challenges and is compounded by misunderstanding, stigma and limited support. Families often face judgment from their communities and cultural beliefs sometimes attribute the child’s condition to curses, punishment or supernatural causes.

    In an article published in 2019, Jane and Isaac Jisangu, parents of an autistic child, told how their community once believed their child was bewitched and accused them of being bad parents.

    Jane Jisangu told the interviewer: “The problem exists, but most people don’t know about it. Some will tell you to go to ‘experts’ or go see your elders. They might help you.”

    Her words reflect how, with limited awareness and scarce resources, families often turn to traditional healers or spiritual explanations rather than seeking professional medical help. The account was reported by China Global Television Network in 2019, highlighting how limited local research and reporting on autism in Tanzania often pushes families’ experiences to international platforms.

    No child deserves inhumanity. 

    Tumaini Kweka, the mother of a 14-year-old autistic boy said that because of autism, her son is often loud and restless.

    “Many people called him a ‘troublesome boy’,” she said. “One day, the maid decided to burn him with an iron machine to teach him a lesson. This really affected his siblings and I as well.”

    This is just one of many examples of how autistic children are treated daily. Sexual harassment, physical abuse and emotional mistreatment are heartbreakingly common. Many are scolded for behaviours they cannot control and are isolated simply for acting differently. Because of such treatment, countless autistic children are denied the chance to attend school, their educational journeys cut short before they even begin.

    Although the Tanzanian government has introduced policies such as the Law of the Child Act, 2009, to protect the rights of children with disabilities and ensure equal access to education and healthcare, the implementation remains weak.

    Limited resources, a shortage of trained professionals and widespread public ignorance continue to hinder meaningful progress.

    Deborah Mapunda, the grandmother of an autistic child, recalled how even visits to the hospital, which were meant for support and care, were met with cold stares and criticisms. “People gave us a lot of judgment and tend to look at us critically,” she said.

    Each stare and criticism left her feeling isolated, frustrated and painfully aware that society often rejects the family rather than understanding the child’s needs.

    “Maybe if everyone understood the situation, they would be nicer,” Mapunda added.

    Parents and caregivers carry quiet burdens.

    Just as autistic children struggle, their parents and caregivers carry a heavy emotional, social and financial burden that often goes unseen. Back in 2012, researchers at Muhimbili Hospital in Dar es Salaam found that many caregivers experience deep stress and even conflicted feelings about raising a child with a developmental condition.

    They spoke about how difficult it was to manage behaviours that are normal within autism but misunderstood by the wider community. Behaviours such as aggression, loud vocalizations, hyperactivity or restless movement often create tension with neighbours and extended family members, who quickly become irritated or uncomfortable.

    Over time, this constant friction makes some caregivers feel as if their child can not “fit in” within the community, a belief that grows into fear, shame and a persistent worry about the child’s future.

    Autism does not affect the child alone; it touches every family member. According to the Family Systems Theory, family members are deeply emotionally connected, so the challenges of one person influence the entire household.

    According to a 2017 study led by University of Kent researcher Ciara Padden, many parents of autistic children are forced to quit their jobs or reduce their working hours due to high caregiving demands, including communication challenges and severe sleep difficulties.

    This places a heavy strain on the parents, making it difficult for them to maintain financial stability and take care of the rest of the family and any other remaining children.

    What the future holds 

    Will children ever outgrow autism? The answer is no. But this does not mean that their lives cannot be full, meaningful and successful. Awareness of autism is slowly increasing in Tanzania, yet ignorance remains widespread, especially in rural areas.

    “I highly believe that educating people is the first step for improving the lives of these children,” said Shangwe Mgaya, mother of an autistic child and an advocate for autism awareness.

    Connect Autism Tanzania, an organization that collaborates with about a dozen centres in northern Tanzania, has made a significant contribution to empowering and training teachers on how to support autistic learners effectively. Four workshops are conducted annually in rural areas and simple tools have been developed for primary caregivers, teachers and the general public to raise awareness and promote education.

    Many non-governmental organizations have also turned International Autism Day, celebrated on 2 April, into a powerful moment for understanding and support. Events like the annual Run4Autism marathon help raise both visibility and funds for autism centers across the nation. Additionally, a gala dinner scheduled for 31 January 2026, aims to bring communities, experts and families together to discuss the challenges autistic children face and inspire stronger national action.

    These efforts have brought a sense of hope to parents and caregivers of autistic children. As awareness slowly increases, more families are beginning to believe that their children might one day receive proper support in schools and be valued as members of the community who can make meaningful contributions.

    For example, a mother on Facebook shared a video of her autistic son swimming and wrote how proud she was that he had mastered swimming in a short period.

    Even though autism can not ‘go away,’ the future can change dramatically depending on how society responds. For now, parents in Tanzania are holding onto the hope that the next generation of caregivers, teachers and neighbours will be more informed, compassionate and better prepared.

    Questions to consider:

    1. In what ways do children with autism struggle beyond their developmental challenges?

    2. Why do you think so many people are ignorant about autism?

    3. In what ways might people have the wrong ideas about you?

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  • The winners are …

    The winners are …

    A story about pollution caused when fires destroy cars and devices that are supposed to be ecological took first prize in News Decoder’s 18th storytelling competition.

    News Decoder published the article, “Are you storing toxic waste in your home or car?” by Paolo McCarrey on 11 November. McCarrey is a student at The Thacher School in California.

    Three stories tied for second place: A personal reflection, “What’s not talked about when you live overseas,” about the different forms racial discrimination can take in different countries by Aida Sherwani of Connecticut College in the United States; a story about discrimination and ignorance surrounding autism in Tanzania by Ramona-Blessing Mkunna, a student at the African Leadership Academy in South Africa; and an article about the effect of climate change on the wine industry in Belgium and France by Slav Karaslavov, a student at the European School Brussels II (EEBII) in Belgium.

    While News Decoder published Sherwani’s article in July, the stories by both Mkunna and Karaslavov were submitted in draft form.

    Two other unpublished drafts tied for third place: An article about climate illiteracy by Amaury Chauve, who also attends EEBII and a podcast by Catherine Araba Esaaba Dowuona-Addison, a student at SOS-Hermann Gmeiner International College in Ghana, about the religious cult leader Jim Jones, who killed by poison some 900 of his followers in the 1970s.

    The judges were impressed.

    Of the first place winner, one judge noted that the interviews served as a valuable tool in the investigation. “I also find the argument central to current discussions around climate change solutions, so the timeliness is great,” the judge wrote.

    The winners were selected by a three-person jury that included Thadeus Greenson, an award-winning investigative reporter who serves as press education specialist at the First Amendment Coalition in California, News Decoder correspondent Christianez Ratna Kiruba, a physician and patient rights advocate in India who writes about healthcare issues and former News Decoder Student Ambassador Joshua Glazer, now a student at Emory University in the U.S. state of Georgia.

    They rated the entries based on set criteria: whether the author interviewed anyone for the story; whether the student reported the story without bias; whether the student considered different perspectives and the judge’s own subjective assessment about the quality of the story.

    News Decoder Educational News Director Marcy Burstiner was particularly impressed by the challenging topics students took on. “The entries knock back the notion that young people shy away from complexity,” she said. “Give them room to explore topics that interest them, give them to tools to find experts and reliable sources and they will dive into really complicated issues.”

    The entries came from 10 schools in six countries on four continents.

    Meeting professional standards

    To produce an article or podcast for the competition, the students needed to find an original topic, credible sources and experts to interview. For stories that explored personal experiences, they needed to dive deep into their feelings and into what was happening around them.

    “If you didn’t know that the entries were being done by people with no journalism experience you would think they had come from professional publications,” Burstiner said.

    For articles to be published on News Decoder, they have to meet professional standards. Students work through News Decoder’s approach, known as PRDR for Pitch, Report, Draft and Revise. The winning stories that were published went through that process. The other stories will be published in the next few weeks, after the students go through that final revision process.

    News Decoder also encourages students to write through a global lens, connecting problems in one community with similar problems in other countries.

    The contest is held two times a year in honor of the late Arch Roberts Jr., who served with the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna after more than 12 years as a staff member with the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee. With the backing of an anonymous donor, News Decoder was able to award a total of $800 in cash prizes to this year’s winners. The entries came from students across News Decoder’s network of school partners.

    To be considered for the contest, an entry must have been written by one or more students enrolled in a News Decoder partner institution.

    Learn more about News Decoder’s school partnership program.

    A list of all the winners:

    First place:

    Paolo McCarrey, The Thacher School (USA) for “Are you storing toxic waste in your home or car?”

    Second place: 

    Aida Sherwani, Connecticut College (USA) for “What’s not talked about when you live overseas”

    Ramona-Blessing Mkunna, African Leadership Academy (South Africa) for “The Misconception of Autism in Tanzania”

    Slav Karaslavov, EEBII (Belgium) for “From vine to bottle: Europe’s newest climate-caused crisis may significantly alter one of its oldest industries”

    Third Place: 

    Amaury Chauve, EEBII (Belgium), for “Can we tackle the problem of climate illiteracy?”

    Catherine Araba Esaaba Dowuona-Addison, SOS-Hermann Gmeiner International College (Ghana) for “Paradise on Earth — a podcast”

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  • When will we listen to what young people say?

    When will we listen to what young people say?

    Imagine adding your thoughts to a conversation, only to have them dismissed by the group — and not because of what you said, but because they thought you were too young to know what you are talking about or understand the topic at hand.

    That’s what teens around the world face when they try to participate in “adult” conversations.

    On Tuesday 2 December, we gathered seven people from six countries in a live virtual roundtable to discuss whether and how young people are able to speak out and be heard. Five teens from News Decoder partners schools in India, South Africa and the United States were joined by News Decoder correspondent Alfonso Silva-Santisteban from Peru and Marouane El Bahraoui, a research intern at the Carter Center in the United States and African Leadership Academy alum originally from Morocco.

    When we asked each of the teens whether they felt they were listened to, they all agreed on one thing: When talking to their peers they felt understood and respected. But when trying to get their opinions across in a room of adults, they were often dismissed and felt disrected.

    “If I’m talking about a certain topic to my peers and they already have that knowledge already, they already know what I’m talking about, then it’s much easier for them to actually hear me and understand me,” said Ramona-Blessing Mkunna, a Tanzanian student studying at the African Leadership Academy in South Africa.

    Some voices are valued more.

    Sophie De Lavandeyra, a student at The Hewitt School in New York City said that she feels that even when she speaks to teachers or family members, she is heard and listened to but not equally valued. “And ultimately, there’s this sense of ‘I’m a student, I’m a child’, so therefore my opinions must be not as valued as other adults in my community,” she said.

    Sydney also attends Hewitt and said that the problem of being heard is more pronounced for girls. “I think people can undermine our opinions or statements and beliefs that we have,” she said.

    Mahee Mantri, a student at VIBGYOR High in India said that she feels that people look at age and not experience, and that while her experiences might be different, they should still be considered valid. It seems, she said, that the age difference gives some people an excuse to not listen.

    That young people feel they aren’t heard may be the one unifying aspect of what we call the “Gen Z” generation — the first generation to be born in a fully-digital world.

    El Bahraoui said that if there is a Gen Z movement, it is one that doesn’t have a leader and it doesn’t have a specific set of demands, but the demands they do have seem to cross borders: lowering unemployment, ending nepotism and corruption, slowing down climate change.

    “Young people are afraid of the uncertain future or the uncertainty of the future. That’s why there is all this anger and people going out to the street and protesting because people want some stability some certainty,” he said.

    From anger to action

    In many places, like Kenya, to get heard youth are taking to the streets in protests and when they do, it has produced results, El Bahraoui said. “Some protests led to the dissolution of the house of representatives,” he said. “Some protests led to the ousting of the president or the head of state. Other protests led only to the government removing a financial bill, such as the case in Kenya. There was a tax bill and then Gen Z protests went to the streets and the government just removed that bill, instead of removing the whole government or the whole parliament.”

    Silva-Santisteban said some of the frustrations young people have is that even when protests produce change, often those changes aren’t long-lasting or significant.

    “There’s an outburst of outrage and young people are called to be responsible of the change. Like they’re the spearheads of the protest. And at some point they become responsible of the change, but then the conditions are the same, especially in a country [like] Peru where you have a political crisis, a lot of conditions for unemployment.”

    Meanwhile, the young people that took to the streets face violence and are stigmatized, he said.

    The young people in the roundtable seemed to agree that shouting demands might not be the most effective way to get heard. Instead it comes down to an ongoing process of talking to people you might not agree with, and more important listening respectfully to what they have to say.

    Dialogue is needed.

    Anna Bamugye, a Ugandan student at the African Leadership Academy, said that you can’t force your opinions on people. “It’s about understanding each other and where you’re coming from,” she said. “And most of the time, we find comfort in talking to those who understand what we’re trying to convey, what the message we’re trying to say.”

    But in order to get a message to people, you must talk to people who may not understand you. “You have to talk to people who have different views,” she said. “To hear where other people are coming from allows you to understand, and maybe just help understand how you can shift that person’s perspective and understand where both parties are coming from.”

    In this way too, she said, you could learn something from them that you had never thought of.

    Mkunna said that If the goal is to raise awareness, you have to consider the most effective way of doing that. She has cousins who were born with autism and has found that in Tanzania people are largely ignorant about autism. As a result, autistic people face discrimination. She decided to launch a social media campaign to educate people about autism. “I think it really helped,” she said. “Because we got a chance to go on national TV and we went on radio and we talked about autism.”

    In New York, Del Cid and De Lavandeyra found themselves angry about the immigration raids taking place in New York and all over the country. Del Cid channeled her anger into photography. “So I personally use my art and the images that I take to kind of convey a story and a narrative,” she said.

    De Lavandeyra wrote an AI program using a large language model, that lets people who speak little English get questions answered. The program allows them “to be able to chat in whatever language is their home language, and be able to ask questions and get their legal answers based off [U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services] data,” she said. “But written in a way where they could understand, and it was not just a bunch of legal jargon that felt unintelligible for them and something they weren’t being able to process.”

    Mantri said that it is important to both listen and speak up. “I feel there is a generation gap which I experienced in my parents or their generation, and in my generation we question why — why is it things are like that?” she said. “I always like to question why is it like this and they probably just hear it and consider it as back answering or disrespect.”

     Questions to consider:

    1. What is the difference between being heard and having someone listen to what you say?

    2. Why is the ability to listen to what people say important if you want to get your opinions across?

    3. In what ways do you try to get your voice heard?

     

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  • When young people ask big questions and seek answers

    When young people ask big questions and seek answers

    Cliffrene Haffner attended the African Leadership Academy (ALA) in South Africa during the Covid-19 pandemic. Her university applications were stalling and she felt stressed and anxious.

    “Life felt unstable, as if I were hanging by a thin thread,” Haffner said. But it was at ALA that she discovered News Decoder.

    “Joining News Decoder helped me rebuild my voice,” she wrote. “It created a place to write honestly and with purpose whilst supporting others in telling their stories. At a time when the world felt numb and disconnected, we used storytelling to bring back hope on campus by sharing our fears, thoughts and expectations.”

    At News Decoder, students work with professional editors and news correspondents to explore complicated, global topics. They have the opportunity to report and write news stories, research and present findings in global webinars with students from other countries, produce podcasts and sit in on live video roundtables with experts and their peers across the globe.

    Many get their articles published on News Decoder’s global news site.

    A different way of seeing the world

    Out of these experiential learning activities, they take away important skills valuable in their later careers, whatever those careers might be: How to communicate clearly, how to recognize multiple perspectives, how to cut through jargon and propaganda and separate facts from opinion and speculation.

    One milestone for many of these is our Pitch, Report, Draft and Revise process, which we call PRDR. In it, students pitch a story topic to News Decoder with a plan on how to research and report it. We ask them to identify different perspectives on problems they want to explore and experts they can reach out to for information and context.

    Then we guide them through a process of introspection, if the story is a personal reflection on their own experience, or a process of reporting and interviewing. News Decoder doesn’t promise students that their stories will get published at the end of the process. They have to work for that — revising their drafts until the finished story is clear and relevant to a global audience.

    One student who went through the process was Joshua Glazer, now a student at Emory University in the United States. Glazer came to News Decoder in high school as an exchange student in Spain with School Year Abroad.

    “I think the skills that I got out of that went on to really change the course of my education and how I view the world,” Glazer said. “Because when you step into the world of journalism you learn a different way of seeing the world.”

    Recognizing our biases

    Glazer learned that for journalism, he had to be less opinionated. “You have to really approach things kind of as they are in the world,” Glazer said. “And that is hard to do. That is not an easy skill that we can do as humans because we inherently have biases.”

    He said it challenged him to look inwards and recognize his biases and counter them with evidence.

    “So I think those skills have really changed the course of how I view having an argument with somebody because all of a sudden, you know, when you have an argument with someone, it’s all opinion,” he said.

    For Haffner, who is now a business administration student at Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University in Japan, News Decoder reshaped how she and her peers understood storytelling.

    “It taught us to let go of rigid biases and to make authenticity the centre of our work,” Haffner said. “Students from different backgrounds found a space where their voices were heard, respected and valued. Our stories formed a shared map, each one opening a new room to explore, each voice strengthening the collective journey we were on. In that chaotic period, we created something meaningful together. Something bigger than us.”

    Working through the complexity of a topic

    Marouane El Bahraoui, a research intern at The Carter Center in the U.S. state of Georgia, also discovered News Decoder at the African Leadership Academy. At the time, he was interested in writing about the effectiveness of the Arab Maghreb Union — an economic bloc of five North African countries. He grew up in Morocco but didn’t want to approach the topic from a purely Moroccan perspective.

    “It was like a very raw idea,” he said.

    He pitched the story and worked with both News Decoder Founder Nelson Graves and correspondent Tom Heneghan to refine the idea. They guided him in the reporting and writing process.

    “One aspect that I liked a lot from my research was the people that I had the chance to talk to,” he said. “It was during Covid and I was just at home and I’m talking to, you know, professors in U.S. universities, I’m talking to UN officials, experts working in think tanks in D.C. and I was thinking oh those people are just so far, you can’t even reach them. And then you have a conversation with them and they’re just normal people.”

    He also found writing the story daunting. “It was a little bit overwhelming for me at the time,” he said. “You know, you’re not writing like an academic essay.”

    Graves encouraged him to write in a straightforward manner. In school, he had been taught to write in a beautiful way to impress.

    “From News Decoder, something I learned is to always keep the audience in mind who you are speaking to, who are you writing to,” he said.

    He took away the importance of letting readers make their own conclusions. “You’re not writing to tell the reader what to think,” he said. “You are writing to give them ideas and arguments, facts and leave the thinking for them.”

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