Tanzania Education Project: Update from Meserani Snake Park, Tanzania 20/09/05

This update comes in 2 separate parts - the first part is about the Education
Centre and the second part about the Book Project.

I write this whilst sitting in the computer room of Kituo cha Elimu Meserani (Meserani Education Centre). There is a young man called Solomon sat next to me who is using a computer for the first time – I keep hearing exclamations of excitement as the computer does things just from the press of a button. On Sunday we had a 1-hour computer class. One of our students had come from Ngorongoro – an 8-hour round journey.

We opened one week ago on 13th September, almost impossibly on time, and we could not have imagined the success that the opening day would have been. We were overwhelmed. An estimated 600 locals turned up – nearly 3 times what we had expected. The classes were all signed up to in next to no time and we had to quickly fit in some additional classes to accommodate the demand. By the end of the day over 300 people had signed up to join one of the initial computer, English or reading and writing classes. They couldn’t believe that they were getting free education.

There is a sense of excitement in the air, an indescribable electricity. The people here have been given hope and the power of hope cannot be underestimated.

The centre staff are amongst the most excited. Known to all of us having all helped during the building, their progression from unskilled people through to competent members of staff is very rewarding and is a sign of things to come. In January we will begin to sponsor two of our members of staff through their A-level studies and in return they will teach 2 evening classes a week. This was but a dream to them until recently, as was secure full-time employment to our other members of staff.

This has all been made possible over the last 9 weeks. Every one of our volunteering team has put their all in to it, getting up shortly after sunrise everyday and sometimes working through the day past sunset. The result is there for all to see, and for all to use. Now the centre stands proudly framed by Mount Meru. It blends in to its surroundings but stands out sufficiently to attract people to the centre. Everyday people come to the centre and everyday they will leave having learned that little bit extra. The slogan of the centre is Kumbuka Kesho (Think of Tomorrow) and with this new hope, people can.

This could not have been done without your support. It is a truly global achievement, one that could not have happened without the excited residents of Meserani, the English volunteers who built the centre in good health and bad, and those in the UK who supported the project throughout – from the BBC to the University of Nottingham. We hope that you, too, will feel as proud today as we do.

Asante sana (thank you very much)
Jess Statham and Max Griffiths
Project Co-ordinators, Tanzania Education Project

After two years of hard work the Tanzania Book Project has delivered the final part of it’s mission…. First there was the Project, and there was some books and now …Tanzania! From sitting on dusty shelves in English schools, the books have been collected, moved, sorted, put into a twenty foot container, shipped to Dar Es Salaam, cajoled out of customs and finally bumped and jolted down the long dusty road to the town of Singida in central Tanzania.

There waiting at a local NGO’s office were six volunteers from England, who tore the seal off the container, and let the books once again breathe. For five days we packed two land rovers full of Math’s books, Science books, English books, dictionaries and teaching materials and headed off to find a speck on a map, and a name of a village. Sometimes the schools were large, with many buildings, sometimes a single, half-built classroom, and we were greeted by single teacher (who was also the headmaster).

Upon finding the head teacher we usually witnessed a number of emotional stages; surprise, confusion, realization, joy. The teachers gathered around, and started peeking in boxes. Then they would lift a book and survey it tentatively. Once they had overcome their surprise and had found the treasure trove of books in their own teaching subject, they would clasp it to their chest, and suddenly the project had achieved its’ goal.

Of course the best, and most satisfying, reactions were from the kids. Crowds would gather round the volunteers, the bravest dipped into find out what was in the boxes, and what all the fuss was about. Books are a slow steady pleasure, and with each turning page, each diagram, and each picture, the kids would begin to smile, more and more. Being used to being taught in the black of a blackboard and the white of the chalk, the books began to be recognized as a Technicolor world of possibilities, possibilities which will resound in each class, of each school we visited for many years. There was also a whisper that went around, the whisper of ‘empira’ (football), and there was the sound of excitement, which grew stronger and stronger with each push of the pump that made the footballs inflate. Of course then came some terrible (and some brilliant) examples of ‘keepy-uppies’, and teachers and kids started to kick the ball around, until it was time for the volunteers to go.

Many asked ‘Where did you get the books?’ and here we remembered the huge kindness of schools in and around Nottingham, the efforts of busy teachers in digging out piles upon piles of books, and all the wonderful support they offered to us. We must also thank the scores of student volunteers who have helped the project right from the beginning, getting up at silly times to jump into a car which would soon have its’ suspension tested to its’ very limits, straining to pick up boxes of a weight they themselves didn’t think they could lift, and straining their eyes as they pored over every detail of the Tanzanian Curriculum to find the books which would bring the most value.

To everyone, from Reebok to the University of Nottingham, great thanks from the entire Singida Region!

Alex Hawkins and Max Griffiths
(Founders of the Tanzania Book Project)