‘Mazingira Yetu Drawing contest’ for Dar es salaam primary school children!

Inspired by his enthusiasm in animation and graphic designing skills, James Chungu a 2012-2013 KL YES Alumnus with his father and a close friend organized an environment related drawing contest for primary school to deepen the children’s appreciation of both art and nature. These can be much-needed tools of expression, awareness, individuality, and positive energy.
James is an accomplished graphic artist with a great deal of practical experience. As a primary school student inspired by his father’s work of art, he used to spend much of his time illustrating comics and fine art in general.

This project worked with school children to draw and participate in the MAZINGIRA YETU DRAWING CONTEST. This contest allowed kids to learn about and work around the themes of environment (pollution or conservation)

“Education is not the filling of a bucket but the lighting of a fire. Interactive, practical, and visual assignments/contests like this give the opportunity to go beyond the patterns of instruction, imitation, and repetition; the aim was to inspire children to create their own, original work and thoughts” said James Chungu

Children participated in the following categories:
1st category: 3 & 4th grade
2nd category: 5 & 6th grade

Formal requirements for the drawing were; Participants who participated in the Contest were required to submit only one (1), personally created drawing.
All participants were required to write their particulars at the back of the artwork.as follows:
• Full name.
• Class
• School name.
Drawings which did not contain all the necessary information mentioned above were not considered.

72 entries from Mlimani primary school were submitted unfortunately 32 of them were invalid as they didn’t have particulars written on the back. The contest was exclusively supposed to be held in three primary schools, Msewe primary school, Mlimani primary school and Changanyikeni primary school but due to the long delay in getting permission note from the new established Ubungo district council we ended up working with one school, Mlimani.

Nuhu’s drawing

Neema’s drawing

The winners of this year’s Mazingira yetu Drawing Contest were, Nuhu Kusekwa (4th grade) from the 1st category and Neema Nicholas (5th grade) from the 2nd category. Atka Bashir and Maria Mrema whose drawings were invalid were also awarded cash prize because their drawings were too appealing to be ignored.

Each winner was awarded a painting on a 50*70cm canvas, Colour Kit (46 Pieces),6 pencils, sharpener and an eraser.

The contest received a great response and excitement, not only from the kids but the school in general. From the number of entries, we can conclude that kids really had fun taking part into this contest.

The following slideshow contains 10 best entries from each category;

1st Category

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2nd Category

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Our Question and Answer Website is taking off – SwahiliQA

The internet is full of answers and ideas, but so much knowledge is in foreign languages. SwahiliQA’s giving people the incentive they might need to share that knowledge in Swahili language.

WTP badilika came up with SwahiliQA so as to democratize education and reactivating highly effective ‘engaged thinking’ learning. The new era of East African millenials is hooked on social media, we want to give youths new online spot to come nto only to socialize but to learn and debate online.

 

Visit http://www.swahiliqa.com

Nimemaliza!

Erik geht Tansania

Ich bin fertig! Wieder daheim, die meisten meiner Freunde wieder gesehen und endlich wieder ein blutiges Steak gegessen. Jetzt gammel ich einfach nur zu Hause rum. Perfekt also, um den letzten Blogeintrag zu schreiben. Viel Erfreuliches zu berichten habe ich allerdings leider nicht…

In den letzten Monaten hatte ich einen Südafrikaner kennengelernt, Ntsiki, der allerdings in Tansania und in Songwe aufgewachsen ist. Sein Vater hatte damals die Zementfabrik gebaut, einen großen Teil des Dorfes und die Schule, an der ich unterrichtet habe. Mit Ntsiki habe ich einen Großteil meiner Zeit verbracht, denn wir waren einfach auf einem Level. So war er beispielsweise der einzige Tansanier, den ich getroffen habe, der auch Atheist war. Eine regelrechte Seltenheit in Tansania! Leider hatte er ein schlechten Ruf nicht nur bei den Leuten im Dorf, sondern auch bei meiner Schule. Und hier fängt’s an…

Ich wurde vom Headmaster, Brother James, angesprochen und indirekt aufgefordert…

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WHO Issues Warning About Measles Outbreak #Europe

The World Health Organization has issued a warning, after 35 people died from measles across Europe in the past year. Measles is entirely preventable with a vaccine, but continues to spread and contribute to deaths around Europe.

Since 2016, there have been over 3,300 cases of measles in Italy alone. The latest fatality came from that very region – a boy that was just six years old.

“Every death or disability caused by this vaccine-preventable disease is an unacceptable tragedy,” said Dr Zsuzsanna Jakab, WHO regional director for Europe, in a press release. “We are very concerned that although a safe, effective and affordable vaccine is available, measles remains a leading cause of death among children worldwide, and unfortunately Europe is not spared.”

Scientists have developed a banana that could help children with pro-vitamin A deficiency in Uganda

The so-called “golden bananas”, named for their appearance, were developed by a team from the Queensland University of Technology in Australia, led by Professor James Dale. The findings have been published in the Plant Biotechnology Journal.

It’s hoped that by 2021, Ugandan farmers will be growing bananas rich in pro-vitamin A. About $10 million was supplied by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for the research.

The process involves modifying single banana cells, which then grow into banana embryos and germinate into plants. More than 12 years of laboratory tests and field trials in north Queensland were necessary to perfect the technique. Ugandan scientists are now replicating the technique with local banana varieties.

18 Tanzanian YES exchange students arrival at Dar es salaam

18 YES Program students who left Tanzania for the U.S.A in August 2016 arrived back in Tanzania on Friday, 16th June 2017 at 09:05pm, flight LX 294T.

After their arrival in the country, they were given debriefing at the Durban hotel, by the IRIS – Tanzania staff and some YES senior Alumni.The debriefing was graced by Ms. Lauren A. Ladenson a Press and Information Officer at the U.S. Embassy in Dar es salaam in the PAO.

World’s poorest countries to aim for 100% green energy

Members of the Climate Vulnerable Forum issued their statement on the last day of the Marrakech climate conference.

Bangladesh, Ethiopia, and Haiti, among others, say they will update their national plans on cutting carbon before 2020.

Delegates here welcomed the move, saying it was “inspirational”.

These two weeks of negotiations have been overshadowed to an extent by reaction to the election of Donald Trump to the US presidency.

But in an effort to show that even the world’s poorest countries are committed to dealing with global warming, the Climate Vulnerable Forum (CVF) members have issued a promise to fully green their economies between 2030 and 2050.

Education Programs

#EndMalaria

We recently started doing our educational programs in some villages in Taraba State Nigeria! We saw huge success with this first one and will be conducting another one very soon! Education is a key element for eliminating malaria once and for all, and we appreciate everyone’s enthusiasm and support through this process!

Malaria is avoidable. But we need to continue to take the necessary steps to help vulnerable populations in preventing this disease!

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EndMalaria football tournament for Ninga village

As a result of collaboration for behaviour change  WTP badilika,Ninga health club and Peace corps volunteer Valentine Eyabi have launched EndMalaria football tournament as part of Endmalaria (Tuangamize malaria) campaign.