I had the good fortune of attending Camp Rising Sun, a camp inspiring youth from different countries to believe in the impact of their voice and action to make their community and the world a better place. It was a wonderful experience and inspired me to carry the transformative learning from CRS to my paternal homeland in Tanzania. During sophomore year of high school, I came up with a plan to introduce a youth empowerment project in middle schools in Tanzania, a part of the world in need of and ripe for youth empowerment. Eventually, having worked out a plan that was changed over time, I presented the idea and then, a proposal to a great educational foundation that works in many Tanzanian schools and through them, was able to gain access to schools in Moshi, Tanzania. 

 

The following summer (2014) in Moshi, with the help of the foundation, I was able to meet and introduce the concept to the School Headmasters and Principals and visit the five schools in the pilot project. In each school, sixth, seventh (and sometimes also fifth grade) students came together to generate ideas to improve their communities within a budget, to advocate for their ideas, to vote in a ballot box and to have representatives from amongst them oversee fair counting of the ballots, to conclude the chosen project. They collaborated to reach the decision on their preferred project for the betterment of their school. They experienced how their ideas and democratic cooperation could have the power to change their lives and community.

 

On the first visit at each of the five schools, with support and introductions from the Headmaster and Principals of each school, I presented the project to the students, asking them to think about ideas to improve their school community, and to prepare to describe their idea to their school community a few days later.Upon returning to each school several days later, a second sixth and seventh grade assembly was organized. In each school, five to ten students who had generated ideas presented their proposed project and its merits to the student body, administrators and faculty. With supervision by the students and the administrators to ensure free and fair voting, ballots and ballot boxes were used to collect the votes, the votes counted and the results shared with the student body.On the first visit to each school, the project was introduced to the students and on the second visit, they delved in and worked on the project. Several hundred young teenage students across five schools participated in the work; it was a great success in each of the five schools.

 

The students, headmasters, principals, administrators and faculty of the five schools in the summer 2014 pilot project showed tremendous support. The schools’ headmasters and principals took time to introduce the project to hundreds of students in each schools. They spoke about their desire for the students to open their minds to the project, to believe in the power of their voices for the betterment of their school today and of their country in the future.

 

During the 2014-2015 school year, I did fund raising person to person and then, on crowd rise to raise the funds needed to complete the projects the five school student communities had elected. These included: a sports field in a school with ground that was too uneven and with too many impacted boulders to allow for safe play; books and furnishing for a room assigned to be a library; uniforms and funds for a school wide sports day; science and math teaching tools and kits; and furniture for a room assigned to become a computer class room.

 

In 2014 I was able to work with five schools and hundreds of students in the Moshi area in Tanzania. Resources were limited but the energy and potential seemed limitless.

 

During the 2014-15 school year, completed fundraising (in person and using Crowdrise online), so that funds could reach the schools for their chosen projects, then started preparatinos for the summer of 2015. This summer, the return to the schools that participated in the project last year was a great experience. It was great to see the students, faculty and administration with whom I had worked last year, and amazing to see the completed projects! The school communities seemed delighted with the results. The project was expanded to five new schools this summer: three of them in a new area (City of Arusha), with one pilot in a high school. Some of the school administrators and faculty had heard about the project from their colleagues in the schools that had participated in the project last year, and were particularly enthusiastic about starting the project in their schools. I look forward to continuing to grow the work, friendships and relationships with these schools in the future.

 

Other Partnerships:

 

LIJF- Camp Rising Sun International Leadership Camp- I thought that other CRS students might be interested in applying their experience at CRS to their communities back home. I wanted to share the experience with current campers as an example of how they need not wait for adulthood to work towards  partnering with other students to improve their community. Hoping to share the experience with others and expand the project to schools in other parts of the world, I gave a presentation to campers there explaining the Peer to Peer Youth Empowerment Project. Campers from five countries expressed interest to start the same project in their local middle schools in their countries. I am preparing materials to show and share the proposals and approach developed over the past two years with the interested campers. With them I hope to start a community of CRS alumni working  on a common goal.

 

Nouveautech- in discussing the project with the company and explaining the needs in the schools, Nouveautech (a UK based software company) is willing to donate computers and televisions they are obliged to discard (even though they are in excellent working condition).

 

Soaps for Hopes- A cooperative in Moshi will be producing soaps that will be produced locally and wrapped in dried banana leaves. They will be willing to share income with the producers, local schools and the Youth Empowerment Schools.

 

Learn Free International-Thinking about how useful the internet has been in some of my learning, I devised laminated sheets with helpful educational internet sites (blue sheets for student learning and yellow for teachers). During 2014, giving the laminated sheets to the school administrators seemed almost irrelevant: computers were scarce and little or no internet connection. During 2015 summer, the change was impressive. Some of the administrators of the schools that had received the sheets were now familiar with educational sites such as Kahn Academy, and most had computer rooms and computer science courses ( done with software, without internet connection). Some schools are now close to having wider internet connection that would allow students to be online.  Also hope to partner with First Chance Nursery School (Tsaranga, Tanzania); Second Chance School (Tsaranga, Tanzania) to track usefulness of the sites.