Newsletter 2

The ugly ducking that was the Waangwaray Primary School has been transformed, according to the Babati Town Director, into the best primary school in Babati. The classrooms that were fit for cattle have been renovated and are now fit for purpose. In a letter to the Trust the Director, Mr Lameck Masembejo, expressed his “appreciation for your valuable support towards attaining the Millennium Development Goal 2: Free Primary Education for all. 2. Let me assure you that the Council will do its best to support the execution of the project” All of this is only possible because of the kindness of the donors to the Livingstone Tanzania Trust so....

THANK YOU

June/July saw our first Volunteer, Clover Stevens, an art student from London who gave up a 6 week trip to Thailand to come and help us and in her words "experience something new and do good at the same time rather than get drunk on the beach".

She worked with the students in the morning giving them their first ever art classes, where they designed and drew Christmas Cards (the best of which we will be using), landscapes and portraits of each other. In the afternoons she helped to renovate and paint the school. Once that was finished she started on a 20 ft wide 8 ft high mural inspired by the children and the surrounding landscape.

Clover lived with a local family and took part in everyday activities from cooking to feeding the animals. This was a valueable part of the experience and she had made friends for life.

Clover and the head teachers

Clover also went off on trips, a safari to Lake Manyara, a trip to stay with the Iraqi tibe and climbed Mt Hanang the 4th highest mountain in Tanzania. She went to local markets and became a familiar face all over town.

Now back in the UK, Clover is helping us raise money for further development work, she is sponsoring the medical bills of one of her students who needlessly suffers from epilepsy and we hope the pills cure her of this condition. Clover has become our first "Friend for Life" a friend whose active participation in day to day life in a developing country has given her the desire to help where she can to improve the quality of life. This is a fantastic achievement and we are delighted to have her on board.

Leah at rock art

July also saw our first Tourist (Leah) who had a fantastic time visiting the Barbaig and Iraqi tribes and staying in their homes. Leah was on a trip to Malawi and South Africa and wanted to come and see what we were up to.

We started off at Lake Babati seeking out the resident hippos before going off to the see Ancient Rock Paintings (2000 years old) that are thought to be painted by the relatives of South African San tribesmen because of their similarity.

At the end of her trip Leah also climbed Mt Hanang and despite the challenge said it was well worth it and highly recommended. Might even get me up there!

Clive talks and Joas translates

After renovating 7 classrooms and 3 teacher's offices, we had a (televised) handover ceremony where we handed the project back to the community so that they can own and take responsibility for it. This is a vital part of the on-going sustainability of our programme.

This was a day of great pomp and ceremony attended by the District Commissioner, the Town Director and other important local people. The community came out in force to hear the talks and join in the dancing.

Clive, one of our Trustees who came to Tanzania on holiday, was presented with a traditional tribal blanket and stick together with a baby goat from the community, a very kind gift indeed from people who have next to nothing. "I thought we were supposed to give them goats!!" Billy the Kidd as he was named was intended for the pot but Clive got so attached to him that he could not let that happen. Billy is going to be allowed to grow old and Clive has since bought "Jean" so that Billy-Jean can make lots of baby goats. They are the cornerstone of our farming project, and Clive once a highly dedicated businessman in the City of London is now a goat herder! Magical things happen in Babati!

At the hand over we announced our commitment to Babati and outlined our desire to help build secondary schools as well as primary schools. After all the students need places to go on to. This is a project we are desperately in need of funds for and hope that you can all help in what ever way you can.

Avocado tree

Imagine going to school on an empty stomach and being so poor that you cannot afford to pay for lunch once you are there, and have to watch your mates eat theirs. Others eat sunflower seeds for their lunch. Those who can, eat the daily ugali (maize porridge) and beans. It fills your stomach even if it has very little of your RDA that we in the West are so clued up on. The farm that we are building is going to grow vegetables and fruit that will become part of their weekly diet. That is not all the farm is going to do for the school. It will grow "cash crops" for the local market that will raise enough money to pay for the electricity bill (after electricity is put in!). The students will learn in the process applied maths and marketing and sales skills. The Farm will educate the students and the community into different farming techniques to help them produce surplus, enrich their soil and harvest rainwater, and as a collective they will be able to sell their surplus to generate extra income. The manure will be used to supply our biogas oven plans before being used as fertilizer on the land. This is how we intend to make our school sustainable.

Starting our "teach the teacher" programme in January - teaching the teachers English. In the summer we hope 5 UK teachers will come out to teach presentation skills and techniques.

We are seeking to bring electricity to the school to enable the teachers' houses to have power an IT suite at a later date.

We need to build new teachers' toilets and kitchens, showers, storerooms and toilets for the teachers' houses so they can at last be occupied, and we have to expand and renovate the kindergarten whose roof blew off in a mini tornado.

We need to treat the last of the untreated timber to make it termite proof.

We need to develop pro-poor cottage industries, in order to generate income to allow our projects to become self-funding, which at the same time creates employment opportunities and wealth within the community.

We want to set up a uniform swap-shop together with a seamstress to make repairs so that uniforms can be handed down.

We are trying to buy land to build an accommodation centre for our volunteers and tourists right in the community where the profits are returned to community development activities, and employ and train local people. A pro-poor hotel development.