November: Addenbrooke's visit, handmade Christmas cards, a concert and an art workshop

Joanne from Addenbrooke's...

 Tom from Addenbrooke's

 Buguruni concert

 Guy and Judi

 Nursery school performance

 Miguel's art class

Art class continued

• Two audiologists from Addenbrookes arrived to give some support to Mr Shibanda, the school Audiologist.  Tom Mills and Joanne Deane had a busy week, making temporary ear moulds, repairing hearing aids, giving more training to the teachers and advising on the facilities the school already had and what they needed.  It was a busy week for them, but they seemed to enjoy themselves and said they would be back – hooray and thank you!
•  Each child received a hand-made Christmas card – in one of the luggage consignments were 300 hand-made cards thanks to Mrs Hadley and her group of friends; since Charlie, her daughter returned from her volunteering stint, this group of ladies have met once a week and made cards so that everyone at the school would have their own one.  There were cards for ‘small boys’, ‘large boys’, ‘small girls’ and ‘large girls’.  Judith and Alison had the pleasure of distributing the cards and the delight on each child’s face was super – you could see them walking round for days afterwards, each carrying their own card.  It is amazing how something taken for granted here, can mean so much to our friends in Tanzania
• A big concert was organized for all our donors and supporters from Dar es Salaam.  The guests were able to see different age groups putting on plays, dance routines and of course music; they were all marched down to their seats with the School Band leading them.  However, it wasn’t an opportunity to just sit and watch, the guests were encouraged to take part and we hope you like the photos of our guests dancing.  Thank you to Judi and George Njau (Deputy Head) for organizing this – the guests loved it and so did the pupils!
•  Thanks to Miguel Costales, some of the children were able to take part in another art workshop.  For more information about Miguel, see here 

October fun with IST

• ·         The community project with IST continued with the children from both schools taking it in turns to visit each other on a Monday afternoon.  This month the focus was on teaching the IST children how to sign, with the highlight being able to sign the Tanzanian National Anthem.

• ·         The Vocational Class made amazing Christmas decorations with materials donated by Judith and Alison.

 

Alex in his own words.

One of our longest-lasting volunteers, Alex Beck: read his story here

Alex bids a fond farewell to Buguruni. Come back, Alex.

Graduation Day 2011

With many thanks to Alison SB for representing Tanzanear and taking these lovely photos, here are some moments from Graduation Day at Buguruni School for the Deaf this week. These are pupils leaving Standard 7, which is the last year of primary school. We have our fingers crossed for their exam results, and congratulate them for all their hard work. And we are LOVING the Tanzanian equivalent of mortar-boards.

Class photo

Winnie (if memory serves) very excited. UPDATE. Memory didn't serve. This is in fact Neema.

I don't think these boys are old enough to graduate, but they are cute anyway.

The delightful, clever, hardworking Laurence Kigala - not old enough to graduate, but a very clever boy who loves maths. Which is the coolest subject of all.

UPDATE: the efficient Judith Roberts has told me the name of this very industrious boy.
And finally - Saidi making things in the vocational class. We hope that these skills will help make pupils self-sufficient when they leave school.

We also have a couple of videos, if I've managed to upload them properly. You can click here and here to see some dancing!

Photos of Anna Gugu

Anna Gugu is a deaf teacher who works in a different part of Dar es Salaam - in the Twiga unit. (Twiga means giraffe). Her salary is paid by a very kind individual donor. We have recently received some photos of Anna, which we are very pleased about. Here she is.

Thanks also to Umivita, who liaise with Anna for us. 

Lucy

Some long overdue new photos

Astute observers may have noticed a distinct lack of updates recently. For shame! Well, it's feast today rather than famine, because I remembered that I had a lovely load of photos from Judith Roberts' trip to Tanzania earlier this year. Trip isn't really the right word, as she was a superstar and went for five months. 

Here goes:

Umivita's spanky new office, which Judith project managed - many thanks to Tanzania Breweries Limited for this: you are marvellous. Click here to find out more about TBL. 

And this shows some gorgeous artwork from our wonderful friends at the International School of Tanganyika (IST)  - thank you so much!  

The new welcome sign on our super new wall at the school  - if you look closely, you can see the sign language for each letter of the welcome message. 

Charlie Hadley, one of our most dedicated volunteers ever, working with Gloria. Gloria is a lovely little girl in the nursery class. Charlie used to work at Mary Hare School and we are so happy - and grateful! -  to have this partnership with Mary Hare. Click here to see more about Mary Hare. 

This is English Club, started by Guy and Judi - two more uber-volunteers. English Club is making a real difference to the quality of teaching and learning in the school, and is offered to pupils AND teachers. 

Teachers at English Club - with Judi just squeaking in on the right there. 

I know I end all these posts promising to do it more frequently, but I am actually going to put an alert in my diary now to do something every week. You can email us at tanzanear@gmail.com to complain if I don't!

As always - thank you to our marvellous donors and volunteers. Although it goes without saying that we couldn't do anything without you, I never see that as a reason not to actually say it. 

Lucy (Chair)

Judith takes a well-earned break - and Guy and Judi come home for a bit

Hello all - you already know that Judith has been working extremely hard, living in Dar for a few months to really get things done on the ground. She's taking a well-earned break in Dubai for a few days, to see her husband Nigel - they haven't seen each other for two months!

Recently Judith went travelling in Tanzania to see how other deaf organisations do things.

Here's Alison (one of our on-the-ground representatives) and Matilda in Njombe - it's so nice to see Matilda looking relaxed.

This travel blog photo's source is TravelPod page: Dar Blah Blah 9

The gang (including Guy and Judi) also went to see the cafe run by deaf people at Neema crafts

http://www.neemacrafts.com

- it's pretty impressive, as you can tell from this photo:

This travel blog photo's source is TravelPod page: Dar Blah Blah 9

Guy and Judi are coming home for a while soon, but, amazingly, are going to go back to the school - lucky us.