PIE Projects Revolutionize Educators in the Masai Steppe

In the heart of the Masai Steppe, a revolution is going on. A revolution that will change the landscape of educational advancement in very remote, sleepy but picturesque locality of Kibaya in Central Tanzania. CUSO – VSO volunteers Martin and Debra Martyn and Tessa Moss together with the local counterparts from the Ministry of Education and Vocational Trainings and CEDRC, headed by Mr. Ndee joins hands together to empower teachers to provide quality education by providing with trainings to enhance their English skills, provide low cost educational materials and to improve their teaching strategies using the participatory education methods.

The CUSO – VSO volunteers spearheaded the PIE Projects which were supported by the British Council and VSO Tanzania for both primary and secondary teachers in Kibaya.  Eight primary schools benefitted from the PIE Primary projects and five champion’s teachers   are now mentoring their colleagues in their respective schools for the PIE Secondary Schools Project. These primary teachers and CHAMPIONB teachers   now have the confidence and empowered to mentor more  teachers in teaching  the students  using an  English as a medium of instructions, produce low cost teaching materials and using varied strategies to make learning more fun and interactive to students  using the participatory educational learning.

To support the PIE projects, Library in Boxes was launch by Peter and Debra to eight schools, one secondary girl’s school hostel and in the model classroom   to continue and develop the culture of reading from the students and the teachers alike where the culture of reading was almost non-existent this schools in Kibaya. Also to further motivate the teachers in providing a good idea on how to have a classroom that is conducive to learning and interactive, a classroom model was introduce.Today, teachers in Kibaya are more motivated and empowered to teach with their acquired and developed skills in teaching English using participatory methods that makes the pupils and students learn better.

However, the challenge remain that sustainability in providing support to the teachers is not yet enough. More support needed for the teachers to empower them and to be self innovative and resourceful that they will continue to strive for excellence to deliver quality education. Kudos to  the CUSO – VSO volunteers Peter and Debra Martyn and Tessa Moss for   sharing their expertise, time and resources  and VSO Tanzania   and the Ministry of Education and Vocational Training for their joint efforts to realize the dream, the dream of delivering quality education to support development  in  improving the teacher s delivery of instruction in English as well as  in utilizing the local  and  low cost but quality educational   materials to make the participatory learning more effective. Let the revolution of change continues!

AFRICA: Joy of My Grieving Heart

Before Kuki Gallman wrote her story and played on screen by Kim Basinger, I dreamed of Africa already after hearing my Nanay’s desire of going to the black continent as a missionary.  My mother passed away during the last holidays never seeing the place of her dream but very happy that her eldest son was there making her dreams come true.

Africa is the Land of the Extremes, the land that others believe it is curse forever.  Images of hunger and poverty co-exist with deadly diseases especially HIV-AIDs and the constant outbreaks of lethal pathogens. Peace is almost not existent too in some places due to outburst of violence brought upon by centuries of greed, hatred, betrayal, and dominance both internally and externally.  The concept of Africa is black, negative, ignorant  and backward for most individuals.

However, Africa is the place of great beauty and opportunities, a  Promise Land. A place where black is beautiful and the paradise is your backyard.  And in every depths of the continent where we think there is no future, hope is always manifested.

My dream of Africa was fuelled by my desire to see what I heard and to do what I want, to be a man of service and to be a great student. Africa is a great teacher where you will understand the irony of life as you observed it in its paradise that a life is a circle. The greatest   thing that I learned is to know how to hope and be patient and how to understand the beauty and the gift of life.

Every day as I meet people from all walks of life, everyone has a story to tell. A dying man in the hospital with AIDS, the crying orphaned kid , a battered woman with infections due to female genital mutilation, a distraught conservationist because of the massive desertification and the building of roads for development as they say that disrupt the migration of animals. All of them, to me they are always a color to my canvass of life. A life where hakuna matata philosophy exist.
Sometimes, I ask myself if I miss my home country and the answer is always yes. But anywhere is always a home for me.  A lesson that always imprinted in my mind, that everything can co – exist  but you always have a place where you belong and that is home where your heritage exist.
Today, while contemplating in my place overlooking the azure blue Indian Ocean here in the East Coast of Africa, I can see the pods of dolphins swirling only less than a hundred feet away, as the eagle soars in the blue sky, while the vervet blue balls monkey runs fast as the crows chase them for stealing the eggs in their nest. As the morning sun rose, the humming of the sunbirds and birds of paradise filled the air. The voice of the vultures echoes dominate for a moment – this is Africa, the land of the extremes, the joy of my grieving heart. The place where my I poured out my sorrowful heart when my brother was murdered few days before I set foot here in the Black Continent. He was the one who encourage me to come here and my Nanay who planted in my heart on how to serve with compassion and understanding. Both of them are my inspiration to work as volunteer in this side of the earth. This  is the   land of compassion, beauty, hope and opportunity where nature co exist with men and the place where  the grieving hearts will be healed.

No Pens, Papers and Classrooms: Not A Hindrance for Learning

In the modern world where students cannot learn or study when laptops are not working or when the air conditioners or heaters are not working it is the extreme opposite for schools in the developing world. When children do not have papers and pens, they have the ground to use as their papers and their hands as their pens just for them to learn. They too do not have classrooms but they have the trees for shades as their teacher teach them how to write by using the ground as her board but it does not bother the children not to learn. Instead they are inspire to learn more and hope someday they can have pens, papers and a good classrooms when they go to school.Teachers resourcefulness and innovative minds will not hinder them to deliver quality education, how much more when they have the resources that the developed world classrooms have, then it will much better for them. In 2009, when I started training teachers to improve their teaching strategies, I almost gave up due to lack of resources as well the enthusiasm of the trainees. However,after years of staying here in Africa, I am happy to see how everything started to change. Let us continue to support change, a change for a better world. Be a catalyst of change, be a Vso Bahaginan volunteer!

The Work Place

 

Mr. Abdallah and Les Fry during  the Farewell Party in Miti Ulaya Primary School Computer Room 

Paying Anneke and Walter a visit in Micheweni Hospital 

Talking to a village lad.

Joan Vasquez, distributing school materials to the  pupils of the island.

A souvenir photo at base of a Baobab tree with Mr. Ali Kombo Ali  .

My neighborhood bakery where they sell buflo,, a local bread that I nicknamed " Gold Bar ".

Who will come to the training center if the trainees  will not come, the kuku ( chickens).

A young lad and  his ox cart.

Common scenario in the workplace.

Said Daudi   help carrying the supplies to the school in the  village.

Dala dala, the island mode of transport.

Using  and re-cycling local resources as educational materials.

Andrew Coulson of the Tanzania  Development Trust during his  visit in  Pemba , hanging out with Les and Carol Fry discussing work projects and having a short singing session.

The beautiful Carol Fry making balloons for the special pupils during our visit to Pandani Primary School.

The First Quarter in Pictures

Meeting the Taarab Queen, the legendary Bi Kidude @ the Police Mess in Chake chake.

Eivind Fjeldstad of the Norwegian - African Business Association based in Oslo, Norway with  his beautiful wife Sigrun Marie Moss who is conducting her doctoral thesis from Norwegian University of Science and Technology during there visit. With them is Dr. Irma Baltes , a VSO doctor base in Wete Hospital.

Joan  Vasquez, and the Kojani School primary  pupils accompanying during the consultative meeting where she  distributes school supplies, clothes and other school materials

Free rides offered by Rodrik  of Holland to  Miti Ulaya pre-schoolers during my  regular school visit.

Inspecting the mangroves in Mtabwe with Johnny Moorhouse.

Johnny Moorhouse, checking the mangroves in Mtabwe mud flats.

Reint and Deni Baltes, on our way back to Wete after that suspense trip crossing the treacherous Pemba Channel from the mystic Misali Island

Wete summer skies.

Fredrik Knoeff cycling on our way home in the shamba

Eastern Sunday in Misali Island with Les Fry, Perfecto Tubal, David Jones, Liesbeth Kanis, Rodelio Pilapil and Fredrik Knoeff

Malengo and Joan in my courtyard chatting.

Joan Vasquez , on the jetty ramp of Changuu Island

My  Zazu in the shores of Micheweni

Relaxing afternoon with Kaka Fredrik and Dada Liesbeth

Jadidah pupils performing during the Parent's Day

The Thin Red Line

Pemba, a predominantly Islamic East African island in the Indian Ocean coast of Tanzania a thin red line exists between the men and women.   A line though thin is an obstacle that hinders the context of development and equality.  A line that is difficult to break, woven by culture and religion that serves as the fiber that is difficult to break.   However, the thin red line can be cross through education. For this past few years, Volunteer Services Overseas (VSO) volunteers and the Ministry of Education and Vocational Training (MOEVT) is very keen in their partnership to   break the unbreakable line by doing gender mainstreaming.  Last November 2011 the gender mainstreaming program of VSO and the MOEVT step a little higher in their quest from their previous works in gender mainstreaming.

This time thirty participants mostly compose of head teachers, school administrators, and teacher leaders converge in Miti Ulaya Teachers Resource Training Center from   the different parts of the Wete District to identify the existing concerns on how to advance gender mainstreaming from the classroom to the school level.    The VSO Tanzania Gender and National Volunteering Coordinator, Imisa Nashitsakha helps steer the oar in navigating the two days training   in order for the participants to understand better the concept of gender mainstreaming in the African context of education.   Also the expertise of Les Fry ( VSO U.K. Volunteer )  in school leadership and management and the author (VSO Bahaginan  Volunteer)  sharing his knowledge  in  integrating gender mainstreaming in teaching   ushered the school administrators and teachers to create the own action plans in their respective school on how to address the gender issues in t own school. The office of the  District  Education  Officer  of Wete  headed by the  dynamic  Bi Fatma Mgeni   and  the Coordinator of Miti Ulaya Teachers Resource Center  (TRC)  Mr. Ali Kombo Ali  commit to ensure  that this action plans  will be implemented  in the schools. As more school leaders and teachers   from the other parts of Wete district were not able to attend the previous training, the Resource Center will be having another training, this time this is financially supported by the MOEVT and the TRC I order for the remaining schools to make their own action plan on how to integrate it in their   school management plan.  Another positive impact of the VSO sponsored gender mainstreaming training program, the head mistress of Miti Ulaya, Bi Sabahi will pilot the creation of the students Gender Mainstreaming Club.  She hopes that this will serve   as model for others schools to starts their own Gender Mainstreaming Clubs too.  As the schools in Wete try to navigate to cut the unbreakable thin red line, VSO Volunteers will continue to assist them to totally erase the durable line that hinders development in Pemba Island.

The challenge is still there  for us here  on how  to sustain what we have started, Les  Fry  will continue to help the school leaders to make and implement their school action  plans,  the blogger  will continue to encourage  and share on how to integrate gender mainstreaming  in teaching  techniques and  providing support  in the creation of  Gender Clubs,  and  the  head teachers  in  motivating their students and  teachers . The Ministry and VSO Tanzania to help in providing the resources and leadership, then we will cross the thin red line of gender mainstreaming in education here in Pemba.

¹The   VSO Pemba Gender Mainstreaming Report 2011 -2012, Pemba Island, United Republic of

                Tanzania

² Pemba   Island VSO Volunteers   Regional and Gender /HIV –AIDS representative

Ordinary Machine Catalyst to Extraordinary Development

The blogger interact with the students after watching the film.

Silence permeates in a crowded open classroom despite of the escalating African summer heat. Everybody’s attention was on the screen, holding their breath and all of the sudden an applause    break the silence. Some girls were sobbing, and one lad said to me “Juanito, I will not escape from class anymore “.  This is just one of the student’s reactions after watching the film Nemo.

For most students and some teachers , this is the first time that they watched a film in their schools. This is one of the initiatives that I am doing to support and improve the quality of teaching and learning  in the schools of Pemba especially in Wete District.   Through the support of British Council Tanzania and VSO Tanzania,   I am piloting the implementation of the Program in Improving English (PIE) Primary and supporting the PIE Secondary here in the island. The lack of resources in mentoring teachers sometimes will hinder the process of transferring skills and it is always a concern to me on how to address it. Though, we can find a lot of alternatives for the lacking resources but there are things that we need that we cannot do because it is impossible to have it or make it such as the LCD projector.

Through the courtesy of the Tanzania Development Trust, we are able to acquire an LCD projector that makes our work more effective and to reach more people. It also help to improve the coffer of the  Miti Ulaya Training Center  because it  also upgrade the facilities of the training center where  they can ask for a rental fees anytime people will come during the weekends to conduct their events such training  and seminars  in the training center using the  equipments. This is one way of making the training center more self sustainable. 
Currently, as Methods and Content / Language   Advisor of the Training Center the equipment is an indispensable tool for me in  conduct training to upgrade the teaching skills of the teachers, gender mainstreaming in the schools,  and most recently my film showing project to create environmental awareness and instilling life skills in schools and in the community. But best of all,  it also provide new   form   of infotainment (information and entertainment)  to improve everyone’s  English skills.The LCD projector is an ordinary machine but an important catalyst in making my small share development work here an extraordinary one for everyone here in this side of the East African coast of the Indian Ocean.  Ashanteni sana Tanzania Development Trust Fund for making our dreams a reality and for trusting me to have the grant.