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.

Tori, Super-Volunteer! - Sounds of Hope evening in Washington DC

Hurray for Tori, one of our best volunteers ever. Tori used to live in Dar es Salaam, and has now moved back to Washington DC with her husband Robert and very tall baby Bella.

A few weeks ago she organised a musical evening in Washington for Tanzania, and sent these gorgeous photos. It raised £216, which is wonderful and goes a long, long way in Africa. We're especially grateful to Tori for going to a huge amount of trouble to wire the money to our UK account, involving many trips to the bank and emails with our Treasurer.

You can see the photos here (I hope):

https://picasaweb.google.com/JodiandAlex/SoundsOfHopeForTanzanear?feat=directlink#

and here's a couple to whet your appetite:

The band

L to R: Mary (one of the organisers), Tori and Jodi, Tori's friend

Tanzanear Exec committee meeting, March 3rd 2011

The Exec Committee met this Thursday. We had a fine turnout: even our Dar-es-Salaam members joined us by Skype (which you can just about see in this photo). Georgia, a possible new member, was there, and Susan Pym, our newest addition. We were sad that Toshi couldn't partake of the excellent pork pies that were on offer.

It was a great meeting: we had invaluable feedback from Judith Roberts and Alison Sweeney-Bissett in Dar, and made significant progress to improving how we work (eg finance systems, membership database, planning the year, making sure we have all the right things in place to meet the rightly high standards set by the Charity Commission).

As always, many thanks to the Robertses for letting us use their house, even though Nigel had to do all the work this time, with Judith being in Tanzania.

You can just about see Judith on the computer screen (as Dar is three hours ahead, and the meeting was long, Alison had had to retire for the night by the time I took this) and then left to right are Stuart Middleton, John Middleton, Nigel, the back of Georgia's head, the remnants of some pork pies, and Susan Pym.