The past few months have been ones of flux; not just with
ending my time at Emanuel and packing up my London days but, most significantly,
with my future plans. I received a phone call about a month ago from the
charity that I was due to work with in Tanzania and was rather devastatingly
informed that they were advising all visitors to cease any plans to work out
there for immediate future. It transpires that trying to obtain a voluntary
work visa for that area of Tanzania is like trying to break into Fort Knox. Long story short: Village Africa have had months
of huge problems with visas, have had several visa applications for teachers rejected over the past few months, cannot in any way guarantee that
they will get my visa approved and, bar playing the ultimate game of risk with somewhat
temperamental Tanzanian government officials, advised me to work elsewhere.
As I said, devastating. However, an uncontrollable part of
my stubborn will refused to give up and I started plotting an emergency Plan B – to find
another project I could offer my time and expertise to.
Like a silver lining, my change of direction came along in the
form of The School of St. Jude.
A friend of a friend living in Arusha, Tanzania,
put me in touch with an exciting educational project that she knew about and, one
month later, I have secured myself a 6 month (maybe longer) placement working at St. Jude. This school is interesting: set up only ten years ago
with a wooden shack and three students, its aim is to provide free top class
education to some of Tanzania’s neediest children. The school provides free education,
free clothes, free books, free transport, free meals and free accommodation to hundreds
of impoverished children in Arusha with the hope that these students will be
brought out of the cycle of disdadvantage and given the chance of a better future
that a good education can provide.
The school is run entirely on donations and sponsors: it
provides a wide level of employment for the local population, and sources all of its
products from the surrounding area. In just ten years it has grown to house
over 1600 students and is growing every year.
The school runs from primary ages all the way up to the equivalent
of Sixth Form and is soon to have its first cohort of sixteen year olds
entering that final stage of schooling. I will be working primarily with these
students and the Head of A-levels within a skill-sharing role; introducing a careers and work experience programme into the school
and helping students to apply for university places in East Africa and beyond.
My plans may have changed but the purpose to volunteer in
Tanzania remains. As sad as I am that I cannot work in Yamba, I plan to spend
time up there with those remarkable Yambans whilst I am over in Tanzania. However, serendipitously, I now
get to spend time working in another remarkable place, The School of St. Jude, alongside
another group of remarkable people; a project that I feel incredibly thrilled to be joining.
Exciting times ahead.
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