![\"MEDEA](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/tanzania-sreening.jpg\")
MEDEA Screening Audience in Tanzania. Captured by James Roh for Pura<\/p>\nMusic, community and joy drive real change<\/p>\n
In a small village in Pwani, a district on Tanzania\u2019s coast, a massive dance party is coming to a close. For the past two hours, locals have paraded through the village streets, singing and beating ngombe drums; now, in a large clearing, a woman named Sheilla motions for everyone to sit facing a large projector screen. A film premiere is about to begin.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It\u2019s an unusual way to kick off a film about gender bias, inequality, early marriage, and other barriers that prevent girls from accessing\u00a0education in Tanzania. But in Pwani and beyond, local organizations supported by Malala Fund and funded by Pura are finding creative, culturally relevant ways like this one to capture people\u2019s interest.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The film ends and Sheilla, the Communications and Partnership Lead for Media for Development and Advocacy (MEDEA), stands in front of the crowd once again, asking the audience to reflect: What did you think about the film? How did it relate to your own experience? What can we learn?\u00a0<\/p>\n
Sheilla explains that, once the community sees the film, \u201cIt brings out conversations within themselves, reflective conversations.\u201d The resonance and immediate action create a ripple effect of change.<\/p>\n
MEDEA Screening Audience in Tanzania. Captured by James Roh for Pura<\/p>\n
Across Tanzania, gender-based violence often forces adolescent girls out of the classroom. This and other barriers \u2014 including child marriage, poverty, conflict, and discrimination \u2014 prevent girls from completing their education around the world.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Sheilla and her team are using film and radio programs to address the challenges girls face in their communities. MEDEA\u2019s ultimate goal is to affirm education as a fundamental right for everyone, and to ensure that every member of a community understands how girls\u2019 education contributes to a stronger whole and how to be an ally for their sisters, daughters, granddaughters, friends, nieces, and girlfriends.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Sheilla\u2019s story is one of many that inspired Heart on Fire, a new fragrance from the Pura x Malala Fund Collection<\/a> that blends the warm, earthy spices of Tanzania with a playful, joyful twist. Here\u2019s how Pura is using scent as a tool to connect the world and inspire action.<\/p>\n A partnership focused on local impact, on a global mission<\/p>\n Pura, a fragrance company that recognizes education as both freedom and a human right, has partnered with Malala Fund since 2022. In order to defend every girl\u2019s right to access and complete 12 years of education, Malala Fund partners with local organizations in countries where the educational barriers are the greatest. They invest in locally-led solutions because they know that those who are closest to the problems are best equipped to solve and build durable solutions, like MEDEA, which works with communities to challenge discrimination against girls and change beliefs about their education.\u00a0<\/p>\n But local initiatives can thrive and scale more powerfully with global support, which is why Pura is using their own superpower, the power of scent, to connect people around the world with the women and girls in these local communities.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Pura x Malala Fund Collection<\/a> incorporates ingredients naturally found in Tanzania, Nigeria, Pakistan, and Brazil: countries where Malala Fund operates to address systemic education barriers. Eight percent of net revenue from the Pura x Malala Fund Collection <\/a>will be donated to Malala Fund directly, but beyond financial support, the Collection is also a love letter to each unique community, blending notes like lemon, jasmine, cedarwood, and clove to transport people, ignite their senses, and help them draw inspiration and hope from the global movement for girls\u2019 education. Through scent, people can connect to the courage, joy, and tenacity of girls and local leaders, all while uniting in a shared commitment to education: the belief that supporting girls\u2019 rights in one community benefits all of us, everywhere.\u00a0<\/p>\n You\u2019ve already met Sheilla. Now see how Naiara and Mama Habiba are building unique solutions to ensure every girl can learn freely and dare to dream.<\/p>\n Naiara Leite is reimagining what\u2019s possible in Brazil<\/p>\n In Brazil, where pear trees and coconut plantations cover the Northeastern Coast, girls like ten-year-old Julia experience a different kind of educational barrier than girls in Tanzania. Too often,\u00a0racial discrimination contributes to high dropout rates among Black, quilombola and Indigenous girls in the country.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIn the logic of Brazilian society, Black people don\u2019t need to study,\u201d says Naiara Leite, Executive Coordinator of Odara, a women-led organization and Malala Fund partner. Bahia, the state where Odara is based, was once one of the largest slave-receiving territories in the Americas, and because of that history, deeply-ingrained, anti-Black prejudice is still widespread. \u201cOur role and the image constructed around us is one of manual labor,\u201d Naiara says.\u00a0<\/p>\n But education can change that. In 2020, with assistance from a Malala Fund grant, Odara launched its first initiative for improving school completion rates among Black, quilombola, and Indigenous girls: \u201cAyomid\u00ea Odara\u201d. The young girls mentored under the program, including Julia, are known as the Ayomid\u00eas. And like the Pura x Malala Fund Collection\u2019s<\/a> Brazil: Breath of Courage scent, the Ayomid\u00eas are fierce, determined, and bursting with energy.<\/p>\n Ayomid\u00eas take part in weekly educational sessions where they explore subjects like education and ethnic-racial relations. The girls are encouraged to find their own voices by producing Instagram lives, social media videos, and by participating in public panels. Already, the Ayomid\u00eas are rewriting the narrative on what\u2019s possible for Afro-Brazilian girls to achieve. One of the earliest Ayomid\u00eas, a young woman named Debora, is now a communications intern. Another former Ayomid\u00ea, Francine, works at UNICEF, helping train the next generation of adolescent leaders. And Julia has already set her sights on becoming a math teacher or a model.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThese are generations of Black women who did not have access to a school,\u201d Naiara says. \u201cThese are generations of Black women robbed daily of their dreams. And we\u2019re telling them that they could be the generation in their family to write a new story.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Mama Habiba is reframing the conversation in Nigeria\u00a0<\/p>\n In Mama Habiba\u2019s home country of Nigeria, the scents of\u00a0starfruit, ylang ylang and pineapple, all incorporated into the Pura x Malala Collection\u2019s<\/a> \u201cNigeria: Hope for Tomorrow,\u201d can be found throughout the vibrant markets. Like these native scents, Mama Habiba says that the Nigerian girls are also bright and passionate, but too often they are forced to leave school long before their potential fully blooms.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u200b\u200b\u201cSome of these schools are very far, and there is an issue of quality, too,\u201d Mama Habiba says. \u201cMost parents find out when their children are in school, the girls are not learning. So why allow them to continue?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n When girls drop out of secondary school, marriage is often the alternative. In Nigeria, one in three girls is married before the age of 18. When this happens, girls are unable to fulfill their potential, and their families and communities lose out on the social, health and economic benefits. <\/p>\n![\"Julia](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Brazil_024-e1772750183448.jpg\")
Julia with Odara in Brazil. Captured by Luisa Dorr for Pura<\/p>\n![\"Image](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Brazil_017.jpg\")
Ayomid\u00eas with Odara in Brazil. Captured by Luisa Dorr for Pura<\/p>\n![\"Centre](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/malala-fund-2.jpeg\")
Centre for Girls’ Education, Nigeria. Captured by James Roh for Pura<\/p>\n
![\"Centre](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Roh_Nigeria_Pura_MalalaFund_-37_ea278a.jpg\")
Centre for Girls\u2019 Education, Nigeria. Captured by James Roh for Pura<\/p>\n