SHARE - in Tanzania

My name is Shannon. Last summer I traveled with my family to Bukoba, Tanzania, to do volunteer work. Tanzania is on the East coast of Africa, and the town we stayed in, Bukoba, is very close to Rwanda. Now that you have an idea on the geography, let me tell you about what I did there.

This whole adventure all started out with my Girl Scout Gold Award project. My family and I have been volunteering internationally for the past summers, and this year we were finally going to be able to go to Africa, which I was SO pumped for. I personally think that it’s just the coolest continent, and I was so excited to be able to say that I had been to Africa. So my family and I were originally going to Bukoba to help with a project where we would install gutter systems onto roofs to collect rain water. This extra water would be given to goats in villages so that they could produce more milk, and the milk could be sold in the markets, raise money, etc. I wanted to make this my Gold Award project, but I read that I had to create a project of my OWN, and not use someone else’s.

So I contacted Smart, who was the man planning the trip to Africa. Since he lived in Bukoba, I asked him what some of the needs of the community were that I could fix. He gave me an enormous list, since Africa is a third world country and all, and the top two on the list were AIDS and Education. I obviously didn’t have that much experience with AIDS, thankfully! But one thing I did know was education. I had to first create flyers asking for children’s books and put them in mailboxes around the neighborhood. The results were incredible! I got over 1,200 books which we brought down with us on the plane to Africa. Once we got down to Africa, a classroom was donated by the Kiteyagwa Primary School – which was the school where the kids I would be helping went. The GCN volunteers cleaned, repaired, and painted the room, as well as add glass windows, a secure door, a bookshelf and signs.

Renovating the room was relatively easy – but the real challenge was to convince the parents to let their daughters join the SHARE program. Three separate parent meetings were held. Ms. Justina, the SHARE coordinator and head mistress of the school, first translated my introduction to the program, and then spoke about the virtues of educating girls. While most parents agreed, several declined, preferring their daughters to perform household chores instead. Today the SHARE room is a safe and secure learning environment, stocked with 1200 children’s books, games, and a laptop computer. The SHARE program is a huge success, with 50 eager young women, ages 9-16, learning to read English, exchanging ideas, and working together to build a better future. I have continued working on SHARE after I arrived back home, and have spent over 500 hours on SHARE. Fellow Ridge High School students (over 30) have also helped me to ship down 8000 more books back to Bukoba, Tanzania. There has been media exposure for SHARE in two different newspapers, and this summer I plan to open up two new SHARE branches in different schools. My family and I also hosted a fundraising party where we raised money to help for the shipping costs of the books.

For photos and more information, please check out the the website.