TWUinTanzania

Hamjambo.
The team is continuing to work hard at their volunteer placements. Our community assessment is begining to reveal a root issue in the community. Tanga is suffering most in the sectors of education and health care. Our team believes the root issue to both of these problems is with primary and secondary education. Primary and Secondary schools require students taking sciences to acheive more credits than students taking arts. Students in Tanzania have the option of what classes they want to take, therefore most students stay clear of the sciences in order to get better grades. Many of the science text books are oudated averaging an age of 12 years. The text books are teaching old and now thought as dangerous procedures such as ciphoning harmful chemicals via the mouth. The text books are mostly full of lab experiments, yet the schools are ill-equiped with lab equipment. The result of this lack of infrastructure and quality of science education in primary and secondary schools leads to poorly educated students going on to teach other students poorly, and to be underqualified in the fields of nursing and medicine. It is a chronic cycle which leads to poor health and education sectors. All dispenseries, health centers and some hospitals lack the proper equipment and trained personel to provide anything more than basic aid, and minor procedures. Many patients are sent away, refered or evacuated to other cities or outside the country. Our team is beginning to focus on how we can participate with the community to solve these problems.

This past weekend I traveled to Mwanza (north-western Tanz.), a city nesstled among gigantic stones where the sun sets over Lake Victoria. I connected with a friend and NGO worker John Sweya who is a partner of ProjectHOPE (http://www.projecthope.ws/index.php) working to give widows the counceling, knowledge, skills, and financial support to move forward and begin economic generation activities in order to support themselves and also commonly the orphans they are caring for. Often NGO workers like John have to intervene and stop men from the community abusing the rights of the widows. Attempts are made and kicking them out of their houses, stealing their belongings, taking control of their property etc. John took me around the intercity and also the rural outskirts of Mwanza to visit the widows and see their work projects. I learned so much about maximizing the potential of the resources that are available to you. John was eager to extract any knowledge or ideas that I had learned in my education or misionary experience. We talked about making the additions of rain-water collecters, since the rural areas south of Mwanza are some of the dryest in the country. Also city power doesn't reach too far outside the city, and it is expensive and unpredictable. Power outages are commonplace every day. Therefore we also discussed implementing solar power. I will be comparing solar power units from Canada with the prices of local units. We also talked about the design of burnt-brick charcoal stoves, a step up from the outdoor braziers often used by the majority of the populace. John had designed two at his house and we came up with some ideas of making them even more efficient. John is also growing trees for firewood, and others which when the leaves are grinded up serve to cure malaria, and another to increase the CD4 count of an HIV/Aids victim. Local agencies have also discovered that grinded avacado nuts can also perform the same function to help HIV/Aids victims. John is teaching over 20 widows to provide these services to their community, manage the business and invest their money strategically. I have hopes that next year Trinity can offer some aid to partner with John and ProjectHOPE in their ministry.
There is so much else we are getting involved in. It is difficult to catalogue it all. Continue to pray for development in Tanzania. Also pray that the Tanzanian team members catch a visions for long term ministry and agents of change in their community. Similarily, pray that the Canadian team members leave this service experience with a motive to be continually intentional, active and missional for the honour and glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.