Bridge 2 Aid : 'Restoring Smiles - Changing Lives'

 6th March 2008

Teachers Visit to the Montessori Schools

The Teachers of Kigongo School have very few resources. Sometimes there can be 10 children to a book and teaching methods in Tanzania are very much Chalk and Talk, I thought it would be good for the teachers to see how simple resources could make learning more fun.

Four teachers, the Head teacher and the Ward Education Officer visited 2 nearby Montessori schools. Montessori teaching is resource based so the teachers could see that with a little imagination and enthusiasm they could make some great teaching resources that would help their teaching and the children’s learning.

The teachers really enjoyed the visits and spent time talking to the children and looking at the resources, things such as cards exercises- matching pictures and shapes and numbers. They spent time talking to the teachers Angelina and Pendo who showed them the different methods and gave them ideas on how they could use the recourses in their classroom.

Visiting Kigongo School the following week I was pointed in the direction of standard 1 where the teachers wanted to show me what resources they had been using. Simple activities that involved the children, gave them a visual stimulus and didn’t costs lots to make! More teachers from the school will go on these visits! (FM)

11th March 2008

The last few weeks have seen many visitors with us out here in Mwanza; the last 2 weeks were no exception when we had 22 volunteers working in the rural areas on our DVP (Dental Volunteer Programme). On their last day we brought them to Bukumbi to see our work here so they can understand a bit about the non dental side of B2A.

Three of the team had been part of the Easter Project last year and been involved in the renovations for Sijaona Block, it was great for them to revisit it and see some familiar faces as well as the building still looking pretty good! For Shaenna it was a particular high moment when one of the kids from a year ago came up to her smiled and shouted ‘Shaenna’. She must have made a real impact to have been remembered.

Whilst some of us including John Simba have been busy with DVP, Fay has continued to visit BCC regularly over the last few weeks and has been holding some productive meetings with the teachers in the local school and is seeing some great progress with the kid’s attendance. So much so the DVP team said to us last week ‘Where are all the kids!’?  Fay was delighted as this time last year they were all hanging around the camp and now ‘most’ of them are in school. (JT)

 Bukumbi Update March 19th 08

We found out this week that we will have to postpone our water project at Bukumbi until August / September time. Unfortunately the procedures have changed about how the government and NGO’s work together and no-one really knows from their end what we should be doing! So to ensure that we get it right and because we have to do it in partnership with the  government we have decided to delay for a few months, during which time we’ll have the necessary meetings to plan the next steps! We’ll keep you all up to date with any progress. (JT)

 19th March 2008

The buildings committee took place last week and the community are looking forward to the renovation of Lwango block later on in the year and coming up with suggestions for the improvements of the rooms. Also the community are finding the cleaning kits useful and the blocks are looking much cleaner inside.

The education programme is moving forward and focusing on the children’s attendance at school. Today after visiting the school to see which children were present we set off to find the children who were absent.  This involved visiting the families of the children to find out why the kids were not attending and also going out into the surrounding village to find the families.  Some of the children were ill and some were helping with housework…. some just didn’t want to go!   So after chatting with the parents and carers we will now support and encourage these children to attend school regularly.

We also delivered new shoes to a young lady called Mary Masunga (pictured) who has recently joined Bukumbi Primary School as she needed to repeat a year, she was very pleased and has settled well into her new school. (FM)

26th March 2008

Yesterday was the Education Committee meeting and I was pleased to tell the group that many of the children’s school attendance had improved. We are still looking at links between the school and the camp and tying to show the children that everyone values education.

Walking around the camp I found a young girl called Judith pictured). I had been to visit her family the week before and she was still not at school. But after talking to her I was extremely pleased to see that she was at school today and actually seemed to be enjoying herself.

Kigongo School is where most of the children from Bukumbi go and they are an extremely welcoming and supportive school. They were very welcoming and happy to show our guests around today, even though they were also busy with mock exams for Standard 7!! The guests included Fays mum, Jo’s parents and auntie. (FM)