Meeting with Village Leaders – Speech in Kiswahili
After discovering about some of our ‘issues’ here in the village, I composed a little talk for the village leaders. My friend in Kigoma, Bennie Muzzazzi helped me to translate it to Kiswahili so I could deliver it directly, knowing that what I wanted to say was being delivered. Here’s the video of the speech, [...]
An Epic Journey – Collaboration Leads to School Opening: January 2013!!
This has been a remarkably productive trip! Lucas and I feel more supported by the various government entities than ever before and that’s because, after flailing around on our own for 3 years, we’ve finally stumbled upon the right people. The first year we simply said ‘yes’ to the request of Mjumbe (chief) Bitata to [...]
Business as “Usual”
Behind all the pretty pictures of the children and the growing progress of the school, there is the business side of things – which in Tanzania can sometimes be frustrating. At other times, it can be quite enjoyable to be part of – especially coming from another culture where business just unfolds differently. I’ll start [...]
Update on Amahoro Secondary School – Sept 2011
On Thursday, Lucas and I went to Kiganza village to scoop up Hindu and Saidi and head over to Mgaraganza for our first big day of labor. We figured we’d have them come along so we could catch up while on our walk and as we wait for the work to begin. When I stepped [...]
May 2011 Update on Amahoro Secondary School
It is so exciting to see the progress on Amahoro Secondary School. Project Wezesha is lucky to have Lucas as our co-founder and in-country director because he is really driving this project with his encouragement, diligence and excellent photos. He just sent 27 photos via email to share the progress! Since November, there have been [...]
PW Students Visit Amahoro Secondary School
Last week, Lucas passed through Kiganza village en route to Mgaraganza village to collect more pictures of the school. On his way, he picked up some of the Project Wezesha students who were making the long journey home from school in Mwandiga. For those that live in Kiganza village, such as Hindu, Edina, Ismael and Diana, [...]
September Update on Amahoro Secondary School
Welcome back for another quick update! For those of you who are new to Project Wezesha, make sure to browse through the July blog entries as I spent three weeks in July 2010 working in Mgaraganza village and Kigoma town – making this happen – with my in-country director, Lucas Lameck. I spoke with Lucas [...]
August Update on Amahoro Secondary School
I left Tanzania exactly one month ago! In that time, so much has happened on the school front. When I returned to Salt Lake City, I sent Lucas another large sum of money from the Project Wezesha account. I couldn’t leave the money in our shared Tanzanian account because I was pulling it out daily [...]
July Update on Amahoro Secondary School
Well – as I suppose you may have surmised, progress was a little slower than I was hoping it would be, but not by much. In fact, in the 3 weeks that I was there, I never imagined that as much would be done. First, Isaya (the builder) had architectural plans drawn up in about [...]
Construction begins on Amahoro Secondary School
Here are some pics of the building project! The whole point is this project, right? I get so caught up in the distractions of people and culture – bad girl. HaHa! I know you don’t think so … building is the boring part (in terms of writing), but it’s moving right along!
Nime Choka Sana! Lakini, sasa naweza kubeba mawe!
Which means: I’m so tired, but now I can carry stones (‘to the head’, as they say). If I had typed up this blog yesterday after working with the villagers in Mgaraganza at the school site, the title might have read ‘Eff That!’ And ‘That’ would have been a reference to the work that we [...]
Amahoro Secondary … Coming Soon!
My good buddy Carter Jensen has arrived in Kigoma! I thought it would be a long lonely road for me from this point on – after saying Kwaheri to my girls on July 5th, but now Carter – a good friend from SLC, UT – has arrived! On his first day in town, Carter had [...]
The mission of Project Wezesha is to increase educational opportunities for children in developing nations by building secondary schools in rural villages and providing educational scholarships to those in need.