IT Education Volunteer Activity in Tanzania

Giving hope, challenge, dream

Seoul YWCA Young Adult Department with 24 other College volunteers went on a 3-week volunteer program from July 11^th (Thursday)- 31^st (Wednesday).

Hakuna Matada: No worries, everything will go well

Volunteers who went through a rigorous selection program met together and started preparations on May 17^th. As specialized IT volunteers, College Volunteers were divided into two teams: Hardware and Software and then each were further divided to emphasize on primary, elementary, or secondary education to plan and be in charge of art, english, math and other cultural education.

           We worried that the huge volume of computers and monitors that will be donated will have to go through Tanzania’s complex immigration process, but the mayor of the area of Dar es Salaam, the location in which the community service will take place, personally came to meet us at the airport, therefore from the beginning, the program started off smoothly. Thanks to the preparations that took place in Korea, IT education; primary, elementary, secondary education; efforts by volunteers for environmental cleanup activities; recycle bazaar, which 500 local people were invited, taekwondo, mask dance, homestay cultural interaction activities and performances such as Gangnam-style were all undergone smoothly.

Polepole: Slowly

           Volunteers visited Tegeta School on July 5^th and taught student how to use office, how to repair and assemble computers, and organized a homestay with the student to further interact with them. At Rafiki preschool, we activity played with angel-like children through arts and craft education, and at Maendeleo middle school IT education and middle-high school education was started jointly.

           During the second week we moved our location to the center of Dar es Salaam. At Tanzania YWCA diverse people attended the IT education program and showed enthusiastic behavior and at Kijitonyama elementary school, English, math, art classes was taught. At the Child Welfare Center, basic computer skills, and how to do a self-introduction using a PPT was taught to students who use the computer for the first time. Despite poor circumstances, we accomplished all of the education programs.

Asante Sana: Thank you

           Tanzania IT volunteers gave hope, challenge and dream to Tanzania children and to our volunteers. Students who didn’t even know how to double click, started to get used to computers and successfully accomplished their work. During arts and craft, watching students getting surprised to see papers of various colors, it caused us to rethink about the meaning of learning and happiness.

           Despite our busy schedule, volunteers encouraged and supported each other and with the help of the local organizations, we were able to securely finish our volunteer work. We express our gratitude to those who supported us together through prayer, and we also hope that Seoul Y International volunteer activity will continue to receive support and encouragement.