Week One of FOA Global Solidarity Project in Tanzania!

“The countdown was over and it was finally the day we started our journey to Tanzania! We arrived to Dublin airport rearing to go, everyone got reacquainted with each other and before we knew it we were on our way. After 38 hours of travelling we finally arrived in Mwanza to be picked up by Father John and Father Janusz who was repping his Tyrone jersey. We arrived to the SMA house, our home for the next month, and got our rooms before calling it a night and getting our first experiences of sleeping in a mosquito net.

The next morning we got a tour of the SMA house and wandered down to Lake Victoria, we had a lovely welcome celebration with the kids from Tanga house who sang some amazing songs and played some African drums. It was great to meet them and get to know them ahead of camp.

Our first week of youth development programmes including conversational English classes! Camps were held at both Tanga House and Kitingiri parish, with each camp having 3 classes divided by proficiency in spoken English. We were each assigned a group to work with over the next 3 weeks, and we delivered the programme in collaboration with local youth leaders- Teddy, Samsun, and Johnis. Our partners informed us that only written English is taught in schools here, and that the children have very little opportunities to develop their spoken English. We got to know all the kids, their names, and more about each other. We taught different topics everyday including introductions, past and present tense, instructions, and debates. It was a really enjoyable first week for everyone involved and it’s amazing to see progression already as the children’s confidence grows and their trust in us increases.

In the afternoons of camp we have been taking all the children together for sport and activities such as football, netball, and dance. It has been great to get to know everyone outside of the classroom environment and to encourage integration between the children from Tanga, who live with albinism, and the those from the parish, while practising conversational English in a less formal setting.

This week we even had a few celebrations including a special mass for Father John who was celebrating 40 years of priesthood and FOA member Ella celebrated her 22nd birthday so there was lot to sing about!

To end the week we facilitated a well-being retreat focusing on self reflection and personal development for the mentors of the LuLu project. The LuLu project is a group who gather twice a week in a safe place in their neighbourhood and learn about life skills, relationship, health, how to take care of money or start a business. The LuLu project also make beautiful and colourful hand-crafts that they have learned to make and sell to earn money in a more creative way which is very important for the teen mothers and vulnerable young women meaning anything you buy from LuLu is an investment in these young women.

It has been a busy but enjoyable week and we can’t wait for what the next week is going to bring!” - Bronagh McNicholl