Hello From A UK Volunteer in Tanzania

Hello from Tanzania.

For the last week I have been staying with the village chairman in Mpandangindo village, and I will be for another ten weeks.

I've come back to Tanzania to visit the Hoja Project and help out as much as I can for the maximum time a tourist visa will allow.

I will be helping (and teaching) in the Vocational Training Centre (VTC) in Sanangula mostly, but I will also be working in the office in Songea Town, and filming for making a Hoja documentary.

So far I have been welcomed by the Hoja Performance Group, and the secondary and vocational training pupils of the VTC, and we have been starting to organise the sports competitions, which this year will include women's football, and include teams from three wards, rather than only the villages that make up Tanga ward.

I have been in meetings with the VTC about their success and how I will help there, and also one very long but fruitful meeting in the Hoja Office, about IGPs, sponsored students, training seminars for Hoja Tanzania staff, and what to do about the growing number of people from outside Tanga ward who are taking note of Hoja's work and asking for help in their communities too.

I'm very impressed with the joined up thinking that underpins the VTC at Sanangula - building and carpentry students are helping construct the much needed new kitchen, both learning in the process and making the cost of the building much cheaper. The building will also include a shop whose profits will be fed back into the VTC.

The students on the secondary school course there are benefitting from a good student to teacher ratio and are performing much better in tests than many of the local government secondary schools.

Yesterday we watched students at Sanangula VTC play local sports matches against Lukala Secondary School, and while the girls battled to a 5-7 defeat in the netball, the boys took a 2-0 lead to half time in the football. Lukala pulled one back midway through the second half, and Sanangula missed three good late chances to finish off their opponents, before a controversial red card in the last few minutes gave Lukala the opportunity to pull of a 3-2 win.

Earlier in the day we had been filming with some members of IGP (Income Generation Project) groups, who were kind enough to talk to us about how Hoja has helped them. We captured some good footage, I think, though we were a little short on women who have been helped, so we shall have to visit some of those projects.

I shall try to keep you up to date with my adventures, and about the sharp end of Hoja's work.