My students work and my current life

Focus Group Discussion with community members

In the shade, under a huge tree of an unknown name (to me atleast), in the courtyard of a school in Paje, Zanzibar, Tanzania, my students begin their practice community assessment. On my side of things, it was a bit of a scramble to coordinate the placements with my Program Director between the students local NGO partner (ZANGOC) and the community leaders.

"Karibuni, you are most welcome to your village. Please come follow. Very welcome" The Sheha (village elder) lead Christine, my partner in crime volunteer buddy, and me to the court yard where the meeting will take place. All the village representatives were there from each part of the village. 

"What do you do?" I get asked a lot these days.

In short, I'm in an vulnerable country teaching students about grant proposal writing while coordinating their practicums in different communities on Zanzibar. This will eventually give them the life skills in community assessment and community empowerment. This helps to alleviate and improve several different aspects of their lives in the community. I guess that's not very short.

Member voicing their concerns

In a larger spectrum of things, my students are taught to solve community issues in their village or a larger town. Usually problems fall under the UN Millennium Development Goals. They are taught:

1) Assess a community for problems: This means gathering data, talking to community leaders, and different stake holders. Problems can go from access clean drinking water to uncontrolled dumping of garbage to accessing under-equipped medical facilities. This is currently where my students are, in the community assessing process.

2) Analyze their data that is collected: They find the most pressing problem in the community and set about a way to solve it. 

3) Create a solution for the problem: This can take days, months, and years even to find a solution. And it could continuously evolve when new technology comes out. In the case of energy, finding solar panels as a solution. That technology changes rapidly. Or accessing potable water on Zanzi, they could use a solar de-salinator that can be easily built with pottery. Finding simple solutions with localized industries can take time to research and even more so to implement

4) Create a grant proposal: For funding should it be required, which most projects will. A successful grant proposal usually serves a the blueprint of how the project will be carried out. These are the classes that I taught before they went out to the community.

5) Implement the project: If the funding is successful, it would be hopeful that they themselves could implement the project. Not necessarily the case all the time though, although it would be advisable.

My students taking notes from the community members concerns

These are the things that I'm dealing with in Zanzibar. Obviously that procedure isn't in complete detail, but it's just to give an idea of what my volunteer job is.

For the next few days, I'll be going to different communities that my students are sent to and checking up on how they're doing. A few of my students are also placed in different NGO's to work on issues they are interested in, which includes malaria, street kids, child marriages, clean water supply, etc.

Oh, woe is me. Time to tackle the worlds problems!