Experience:
Organisation:
Name: Sadha
Hometown: Sydney
Destination: Tanzania
Project type:Sexual Reproductive Health Education
Organisation: Students Partnership Worldwide (SPW)
What were your impressions of your destination?
Tanzania is a beautiful country and the people are extremely welcoming. Of course there are aspects of the culture that can be irritating or hard to get used to but in the end most people fall so in love with Tanzania that they have a hard time leaving. There are many opportunities for amazing travel experiences in Tanzania as well (safari, zanzibar, mountain-gorillas).
Was the work interesting and challenging?
The work I did was teaching sexual reproductive health education (hiv/aids prevention, sti's, life skills, human rights, decision making, safe sex practices) in primary schools, secondary schools and the community. It was extremely challenging and extremely rewarding. All volunteers are placed in rural villages around the southern highlands of Tanzania (Iringa district) and most villages are quite conservative so it can be hard to talk about such stigmatized subjects but when you succeed it is so rewarding and people are quite co-operative in the end. I was never bored and there is always plenty to do!
What was your accommodation like? Did you feel comfortable and welcome at all times?
The community you live in provides you accommodation either in your own small house or in a homestay. The houses are usually brick, with concrete floors, tin roof, no ceiling boards, a drop-toilet outside and may have access to running water or be close to a source of water which you will need to carry in water buckets. Some houses have electricity (sometimes!) but most don't. It is part of the community's and SPW's responsibility to make sure volunteers are safe so I always felt very safe and if I didn't I would have reported to SPW and they would have dealt with it. I shared a courtyard with a Tanzanian family and this was fantastic, they are wonderful and became my own family while I was there.
Were you happy with the organisation and the staff that were responsible for you during your stay?
SPW has amazing ideas and program goals and mostly the staff are good. The staff looking after volunteers are all Tanzanian (although there are some Europeans in the office in Iringa) and while this is fantastic (as the program should be run entirely by qualified Tanzanians) it also brought some cultural issues with it (staff relationships with Tanzanian volunteers) but as these didn't affect the work of SPW it was not too bad. There were the normal frustrations with staff such as communication, money etc but nothing serious and I believe the only way to make this program better is for more SPW volunteers to go and make it better!
Do you feel that you got value for money on the project?
SPW is great value for money. Although it's expensive (around $10,000AU for 8 months) this includes flights to and from country, insurance, in-country travel, volunteer living allowance each week, intensive Swahili training, teaching training, accommodation and project costs.
Would you recommend the project to others?
Yes
