TANZANIA - Karagwe, Kagera District
Tanzania is known throughout East Africa for having years of peace, most often credited to the unifying national language of Swahili. Volunteers in the mountainous Karagwe Region will find themselves in a remote town where the majority of people are farmers subsisting on less 
than $100 a year. Sadly, the AIDS epidemic, malaria, and other health crises have touched this vibrant community. Amizade volunteers will work side-by-side with an impressive team of community members and organizers dedicated to improving people’s lives.
Program overview: Amizade volunteers will live within the community of Karagwe and serve with our partner community organizations. Volunteering frequently relates to supporting the installation of water systems on family homes or to assisting with the construction of a Transitional Home for orphans. Additionally, volunteers may have opportunities to work with children in local schools or provide other needed services. Service is only one component of the Amizade Experience. Volunteers will also learn through speakers from local organizations, visits to local mosques or churches, and local cultural and recreational opportunities. Groups of Amizade Tanzania volunteers stay in a local hostel, while individual volunteers are placed in a home stay with local families.
Our Community Partners:
Family Alliance for Development & Cooperation (FADECO) - This grassroots community organization focuses on empowering local community members to support themselves economically, increasing nutrition and preventative health practices, and providing educational technology and resources that will lead to community-driven plans for sustainability. Located in the rural Kagera District just beyond the energy grid, this organization has helped:
- bring the first radio station and the Internet to their region
- design a solar food preservation system
- implement rain water harvesting
- and continuously educate the local community.
Women Emancipation & Development Agency (WOMEDA) - This women's organization focuses on increasing economic and human rights by supporting members of the community through legal procedures and training programs. WOMEDA
- provides free legal and educational services for women and children in Tanzania
- Promotes gender equality through workshops on women’s and children’s rights, political leadership, and legal literacy.
- Provides counseling services to families, and works with community members to ensure children’s rights.
Past volunteers have done qualitative and quantitative research for WOMEDA that enabled them to receive grant funding. FADECO and WOMEDA have also worked together through Amizade to provide rain water harvesting systems to families identified by the community to be in the greatest need.
Evangelical Lutheran Church
Amizade volunteers work with the Lutheran Church in their efforts to construct a transitional children’s home. The vision for the transitional home is to provide a center where children could stay while waiting to be placed in foster care and to provide education and training for the children. The facility will be staffed and administered by the Nyakahanga Hospital. The Lutheran Church also partners with the hospital to administer a number of vital community health initiatives, including an AIDS Control office. Amizade volunteers can be placed at the Nyakahanga Hospital to complete community service focused in medicine and health.
Recent Successes:
Over the past few years, Amizade volunteers have participated in projects related to community health including:
Transitional Children’s Home construction: The transitional home is near completion, with plans to finish by the end of summer 2009.
Women’s Rights Research: Amizade service-learning students compiled data that demonstrated women walk an average of twenty miles to receive representation from WOMEDA. This information helped WOMEDA receive grant funding and supporting to continue its efforts.
AIDS Education Children's Book: Amizade volunteers teamed up with local educators to design and publish a book in Swahili to educate youth about AIDS prevention. The pictures for the book were completed by Tanzania school children.
Current Focus: Conservation Education
Our community partners are innovative organizations that have been recognized for the profound value they contribute to the community by improving women’s rights and helping rural households improve their livelihoods. Currently, their focus is to improve the general access to water and to develop sustainable water harvesting systems for families.
"I personally believe that cross cultural programs are very important in that, they contribute enormously towards making the world a better place to live in. When two or more cultures (or peoples) meet or interact, they share their life experiences. So these offer a learning opportunity for those involved to realize their identities while at the same time, appreciating the other. And then, this opens the door for the recognition of man as a human being among human beings."
- Joseph Seiku, Director of FADECO
