Tanzania!!!

Myself and one of the teachers from my school were invited to attend an 8 day training in Dar es salaam, Tanzania for MTV SAF Grant to learn about capacity building. I was in Tanzania from Feb 5 to 16th. It was amazing! So much fun and I learned so much. The entire 8 days of work was basically to teach us all how to essentially run an NGO…which with my current career goals was perfect for me. I learned so much. It was led by an NGO, Restless Development from the UK to train us and they were awesome. They are going to continue to give us feedback and any help we need with our projects for the next 6 months which I great to. I met my MTV supervisors as well and they are very cool and laid back people. It was great to meet the faces behind the requirements and get to know them as actual people and not just funders.
The training was 5 modules: Strategic/operational Organizational planning, Monitoring & Evaluation, Media & Marketing, Financial Management, and Resource Mobilization & Partnerships. I learned so much and it was great cause its all stuff that will really help me in Grad School so that was a big added bonus. We had one day off and we spent the day on a beautiful island near Zanzibar off the coast of Tanzania just swimming in the ocean and lying on the beach. The ocean is gorgeous there. The kind of tropical ocean where its light turquoise and then fades to blue. So pretty. Most of the other grantees had never been in the ocean or even seen the ocean before so myself and a few of the other UK facilitators spent a good amount of time at the beach and in the hotel pool teaching others how to swim.
There were 8 other organizations there from Sierra Leone, Cameroon, Ghana, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Nigeria and Rwanda. The facilitators came from different places too because Restless Development HQ is in UK but has 11 other branches in the world. So the facilitators came from UK, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia. It was great to meet so many people from all over. These other grantees are absolutely amazing people. They are all in their early 20’s or mid 20’s and are so passionate and motivated to bring change to their countries no matter what. Two of the guys from Sierra Leone are fight for the rights of Lesbians, Gay, Bi-sexual and Transgender people in Sierra Leone where its very illegal to be any sexual orientation other then heterosexual. These guys are fighting to protect themselves and others and live free lives even though they have been threatened, beaten up, attacked, kicked out of places, etc… in Sierra Leone its so bad there that even if there is just a rumor that you might be gay or someone tells someone else, no proof at all, you can be kicked out of your home, university, job, etc… totally ostracized in your own country…yet these guys know they are right and are fighting. Its amazing!
There were other organizations just as inspirational. There are two organizations in Cameroon, 1 is fighting against child trafficking and the other is fighting for women’s rights, specifically to stop female genital Mutilation because it is still a very big practice there. There were medical students from Rwanda that are with an NGO that goes to military bases and teaches soldiers about HIV/AIDS prevention. In South Africa, it was two guys that have an NGO called Snapshot and they film documentaries all related to HIV/AIDS prevention and show them at schools and other events. In Nigeria, the Ngo is fighting for Muslim Women’s Rights and the other few from Ghana and Zim are just as amazing. Everyone is so intelligent and dedicated to their causes. It was so hopeful to see these young people that just came out of nowhere in the middle of these countries with so much strife against them and they are fighting to help everyone around them and risking their lives to do so. These are the people that keep me going. Even since I’ve been back I’ve had so many problems with the second meal and the grant and childish issues and I think of those people in Tanzania…if they can do it..i can do it. I’ve remained in touch with most of them even just in the last week. We really all became like a little family. There were only 18 of us, and like 26 or so with the facilitators and everyone got along so well and really cared about one another and how to network and help our one another’s causes. The facilitators said they have never seen a group bond so quickly together. Its was a wonderful experience.