Tanzania 2010

So, we're finally back from The Great (Ad & Media) Football Giveaway. There's a lot of adjectives I could use to describe the last ten days. Most of them would be entirely inadequate for what has proved to be an experience that I shall never forget. And one that has given me many things, including a massive dose of perspective. Which is a brilliant thing to have every now and then.

The numbers tell one story - 9 ad & media bloggers and ragtags, 3 brilliant drivers, 1 stolen bag, 2 car problems (thankfully not serious), 2 stomach upsets (not serious), a 'few' bottles of the local firewater (pretty serious), and countless rounds of Rummy in the evening (very serious).

But the important numbers of-course, are those that speak of what we were there to do. Over the course of the trip we distributed over 2,000 footballs and believe that we managed to reach somewhere in the region of 30,000 children. This was achieved mostly through the 70 odd schools that we visited and distributed balls to, but there were also the random groups of kids that we would see by the side of the road, and those that we reached by hooking up with other NGO projects like the Save The Children health centres who will be using the footballs we gave them to help encourage mother's to come in and learn about life threatening diseases, through allowing their children to play football while they do it.

The photographs that many of us took tell a brilliant visual story of our adventure, so we're setting up a Flickr group to host them, and our friends at Motherlode have kindly said they will edit the footage we shot into a short film of the trip which I will put up here when it's done.

The Great Football Giveaway allocate a grant of $1,000 to each project team to give to an NGO project they encounter on their journey. So we've decided to allocate ours to the Malaika Children's village, the orphanage that we visited and gave footballs to on our first day out of Dar Es Salam. It's a wonderful place, that provides a safe haven for kids who basically have no-one. Kids like Yassin, below right, who was found abandoned in a hotel.

I want to say thank you, again, to everyone that supported us and helped us to raise over £10,000. It will likely take us a while to get through our long list of donors, but as long as you've given us your e-mail address, each and every one of you will receive a photo of the balls that you bought being handed over to the kids who got so much joy from them.

I want also to say a huge thank you to the eight amazing people who came with me. Eight people who I now count as great friends. When I first put that post up, I had no idea of the amazing journey that it would begin. I asked for two volunteers, and I got four times that. I think it's a wonderful thing that 9 people who barely knew each other can come together through the power of a simple idea and do some good in the world.

My enduring memories of the whole thing will come back to the great fun we had as a group, but most importantly to the smiles on the kids faces - the sheer joy that we saw and heard every day. The happiness that a simple thing like a football can create really is a magical thing. And that, after all is said and done, is what this has all been about.

On our way north from Lindi the other day, our trip was stalled due to the start of the rainy season and an enormous bus that had slid sideways on a very narrow "in progress" road, stopping traffic cold in both directions. We, of course, were backing up photos onto an iPad when our SUV rolled up on this muddy scene of frustration and chaos and it begged the question, "Is there an app for that?"

This past week has taken many of us far from the techno-fetish world of gadget idolatry and into a dark age of dial-up speeds and mono-tasking. The over riding concensus is that disconnection is not such a bad thing. Our time has been spent firmly in the analogue, with smiling children, friendly Tanzanians and marathon rummy games with truly fantastic new friends. Trust us, there is life beyond digital.

This morning we went to Kisiwani Island where the local school sits a stones throw from an 11th century mosque and the ruins of a German fort. The 200 students there were more than ready for an epic 9 vs. 9 penalty shootout, which came down to the wire with the students prevailing. Great fun and a video to follow once we return to the land of broadband.

Tonight we're getting ready for our trip north to Dar Es Salaam in the morning. A few stops planned along the way , all to be decided by the condition of a 70k stretch of bad road. We're all looking forward to a final night  to reflect and laugh, before heading back to our normal lives in New York, London and Austria.

So, we're back from a two day odessey to Lindi in the South, stopping off at countless schools on the way. Two days of driving into schools: writing the names of the donors whose balls we're going to give out; seeing faces peering out from the classrooms; hearing a huge buzz of excitement as the kids realise we have footballs with us; meeting the Head Teacher; telling the children why we're there; playing penalty shoot outs with the kids - kids like Arafa (below), who is ten years old, who became the hero of Kilwawa primary when she won a bunch of netballs for her school. Mr Mchopal (below), Deputy Head of Mingoyo secondary, told us about how much the kids in his school love football. They have a football pitch, but no football. He said the balls will help with attendance levels at school.

The best bit of all of it, without doubt, is seeing hundreds of kids screaming with delight and running as fast as they can past you as you boot the footballs onto the pitch. Nothing matches that.

This is Hamisi. He's 13 years old and goes to Mzizima school here in Kilwa, and his favourite team is Arsenal. His school has a football pitch, and 300 children who love to play, but no footballs to play with. So today Hamisi won a whole bunch for his school. By answering a question about naming an English football club, he became a hero for a day at his school.

Today, we split the cars up to cover more ground and headed North and West, managing to reach 20 schools and around 8,000 children. We've learned that it's all about the ceremony - not only explaining who we are and why we're there, but asking two kids to step out and answer a couple of simple questions, or shoot some penalties, or do some keepy-uppies, or anything to win the balls for the school - its a lot of fun for everyone, and the smiles on the kids faces are indescribable.

One of the many highlights of the day, was finding Ilulu Girls School, where we met Liz, a peace corps volunteer who teaches at the school who took us into her classroom - the reception from the girls was just charming. Tomorrow we head South to Lindi near to Mozambique, stopping off at some schools on the way from the list that the local Minister of Education has given us. We'll be staying the night there, so we can cover off some schools down there on Thursday.

After our Sunday adventure in Kilwa Kivinje and our visits to Migeregere and Luhatwe, it was Monday and school was in session. Our plan was to reach as many primary and secondary schools as we could in the immediate Kilwa Masoko area. As fun as it is to travel from village to village or even look for kids ad hoc along the road, the schools promised the greatest avenue for impacting a lot of children efficiently. And a lot of children there were, with primary and secondary schools ranging from 200 to 700 students. We visited the Masoko, Mnazimmoja, Uhombuzi, Mhwanyule and Mtanga primary schools as well as the Kilwa and Mtanga secondary schools. Like with the towns and villages we learned as we went.

We would roll up into the yard, a caravan of three SUV's and look for the head master. A ripple of excitement would wash through the kids in their classrooms, coming to the windows of the surrounding buildings. We'd meet with the head master or mistress and explain our mission which would usually produce a look of bemusement or a laugh of disbelief. We'd ask them to gather the children together so we could talk to them, ideally on the school's football pitch if they had one.

Once the children had come together and they saw some of the footballs and netballs we held, their excitement would build, but they were incredibly disciplined waiting patiently as we explained who we were and why we were there. We'd then set up a challenge for two or three of the smartest children in the school to answer some questions in order to win the balls for the school. "What is the capital of Tanzania?" or "Name three English football teams?" or the particularly sticky "Who coaches Arsenal?" The students were bright, focused and always correct.

We then explained that the balls were gifts to all of the children at the school and that what they represented was the spirit of football: sharing, teamwork and, most of all, running and playing and having fun.

 

What would follow could only be described as glorious, joyful, unmitigated chaos as they were thrown the balls and told to go play. Some children would explode and run toward the thrown balls, while others would be slow to believe the this was REALLY happening. The best were the youngest ones who would stand in small groups, shocked looks on their faces, wondering why the whole world had suddenly gone mad. But when you threw them a ball, the spell would be broken and they'd squeal with delight. Everyone on the team agrees that we all know now know what it's like to be a real life Father Christmas.

Tomorrow, we head West and will try to divide and conquer,  leap-frogging through as many schools as possible in the more remote areas. We are hell bent ono changing the perception of education in Tanzania one school at a time.

It's Sunday and though school was out there were some lessons to be learnt today. The first lesson being you CAN have too much of a good thing. Durng the first stop of the day our enthusiasm for distributing balls brought the town of Kilwa Kivinje to a complete standstill. Once word got out that there three cars of people giving out footballs all hell broke out and the narrow streets were packed with kids desperate for a ball. 

Lesson number two came in the town of Migeregere where we decided to find some space before we start giving out balls. You'd be amazed how differently kids react when given a ball in a little with a bit of room to play. In the streets it was 'every man for himself'. In the fields it became 'a game of football'.

The last leasson of the day came in the village of Luhatwe when it became obvious the sometimes 'less is more'. As evening prayers came to an end we instructed all the children to meet us on the nearby football pitch. We then handed out a few balls, just enough. A brilliant game followed and an hour or so later over one hundred children were playing football, netball, catch and keepyuppy and the evening sun turned orange. It was a beautiful way to bring an amazing day to an end.

 

So we have arrived here in Kilwa after a hard days travel but an amazing one giving out a bunch of footballs on the way down. A real highlight was visiting a children's village in Mkuranga, not far out of Dar Es Salam, run by a small charity called Malaika Kids. The charity find homes for orphans, and the ones which they have not found homes for live in the orphanage, so these are kids that basically have no-one. We gave them some footballs and it was just brilliant - the smiles on their faces were just fantastic.

On the way down here, whenever we saw a group of kids by the side of the road, we stopped to give out some netballs and footballs - and the reactions were just brilliant. Tonight, we've arrived at where we're basing ourselves in Kilwa Masoko. Tomorrow we've got a few things to sort, including retrieving the balls that have been stored but we'll be heading out in the afternoon to find some local schools.There's no fixed internet here, but we've managed to hook up on a dongle, so all being well, more posts to come.

 

 

 

We held an excellent fundraising evening last week in London, on Wednesday 27th October. Everyone had a brilliant time and it was great for several of us going on the trip to Tanzania to meet up as well as meet with Paul and Sarah of The Great Football Giveaway. 

We started the evening programme by showing the short and very inspiring Football Giveaway video, then Neil told us about how this project started for him, and Paul talked about how the overall initiative started about 5 years ago. 

Hugh came up front after that to tell us about an interesting and fun project to design an application based on one's feelings of guilt and which would allow people to alleviate that guilt by quickly making small donations to different charities based on personal choices and feelings. To top it off in true Radio 1 fashion, Hugh shared his personal Top Ten guilts. 

And last but not least, Neil from UsTwo was kind enough to join us and share a really interesting project they have been up with another charity, The Kids Company, who take care of children in inner city areas of the UK. The kids participated in creating designs for a MouthOff iPhone application released today, the proceeds of which will all go directly to the charity (minus the 30% Apple keeps for the transaction). 

Thank you again to everyone who attended and donated, it was a brilliant evening. I only have two more days to go until flying to Tanzania, can't wait!

Willem

Some late essentials for the trip - First Aid kit, torch, mossie repellent, GPS, water purifying tablets. Getting seriously excited now...

Once we arrive in Dar-Es-Salam, we will be picking up our vehicles and our drivers and heading out into South Eastern Tanzania, into the Pwani and Lindi regions, and possibly as far south as the town of Lindi itself.