I first heard of Churwi in 2008 I think, it was confirmation time again and Sr Annette had a new project.   She wrote to the 6th class telling them about a village way up on the hills. There was no school there and the children had to walk an hour to Maji Matitu school. That would be somewhat manageable if there was no rainy season. Every year the rains come around the months of March and April. The lower land floods and the roads are impassable. Each year people die trying to cross the floods. Even still this year two little children died in the floods between Maji Matitu and Churwi. 
So with help from the Creagh NS confirmation class, a school was built on the hills of Churwi. It began with 59 pupils. It now has well over 1000 enrolled. 
​
On Friday we walked up for a visit and to drop off some gifts from Ireland.

The acting head teacher and the sports teacher were delighted to receive our gifts. The two footballs came all the way from Noel Mannions sports shop in Ballinasloe. They were intrigued by the LEGO from Galway Education Centre. The skipping ropes and pens (also from Galway Education Centre) will be put to good use by the pupils and teachers. 

We don't realise how lucky we are in Ireland with our interactive whiteboards, laptop trolleys and tablets galore. This is one of the older classes studying the subject ICT/Computers.

One of the gifts sent out by Galway Education Centre this summer was a huge box of LEGO. Sr. Annette decided to start a Saturday building club in the COBET project. While preparing the LEGO for the first session, dividing it into boxes etc, I discovered that LEGO had never been seen before in Mbagala. The Tanzanian nuns, the teachers (primary and secondary) all expressed amazement at the colourful interlocking blocks. 
I got a bit worried myself and set about making examples for the pupils to see. As the COBET children speak Swahili and have very little English, I wouldn't be able to explain very well what they could make with the LEGO.

The first LEGO Saturday dawned and at 9am 14 kids and a teacher waited for me. The pupils were all in uniform and had been chosen by the principal as inventive children who could be good construction.
I showed them the samples I had made and then showed them the LEGO pieces. Through their teacher translating into Swahili I asked them to make a vehicle and off they went to work.

I have never worked with a quieter, more engrossed set of students. There wasn't a sound for two solid hours. I thought the two hours set aside for the workshop was too long and that I would have to break it up with activities. Not a hope!
These kids were intent on making their vehicles and trying every tiny piece of LEGO. It was amazing to see what they came up with.

After two hours of LEGO making, only interrupted by my insistence of photographs, we all gathered around a table to play "Sinking Ship", a board game also donated by the Galway Education Centre. Needless to say, the children had not much experience playing board games and they seemed to really enjoy this type of concentration game.
Finally I had to choose the best vehicle and pictured below is the winner with her prize of the Sinking Ship board game. 

The Connacht Tribune of Thursday 31st of August featured a lovely piece about Sr. Annette and her work in Tanzania. I had forwarded the July article from the Citizen newspaper to the editor Dave O'Connell thinking he might be interested in a good news story about a nun from Kilconnell.
Dave seemed to really like the story and talked very enthusiastically about it on the Keith Finnegan show on Galway Bay FM that morning! Click on this link and skip up to 1:11:40 to hear him talking about the article.
Here is the Youtube video he mentions:

You can read the article in full by following this link. 

The online edition doesn't have all the photos so above are pdf's of the actual paper kindly sent to me by Dave so I could email them to Sr Annette. 

If you are viewing this blog post on a phone you will probably have to download the pdf link at the top. If you are viewing this on a laptop or computer, you shouldn't need to do any downloading!

Just over one year ago, there was no Coderdojo in Tanzania and now there are two!

Coderdojo itself is an amazing story. The first Coderdojo club was hosted in Cork, Ireland by James Whelton. He had famously hacked into the iPod Nano and his schoolmates asked him to teach them about coding. This concept of peer tutoring has developed (with the help of co-founder Bill Lao) into the Coderdojo Foundation with over 1,100 clubs in 63 countries.

Last year I had a mission to set up the first Coderdojo of Tanzania. Thanks the the great teachers and principal of Debrabant, that plan came to fruition. Read about it here
This year I returned with a gift of 5 Raspberry Pi's from the Coderdojo Foundation. The teachers were amazed and delighted with the gift and have great plans for their use. The possibilities are endless, especially with all the support materials available on the Coderdojo website. 
Debrabant Secondary school is known as a very innovative school in Dar es Salaam. With 80 computers for use by the students, it is giving the students a great advantage preparing for their state exams. The school already participates in Young Scientist Tanzania and these Raspberry Pi computers might be incorporated in a project in the future!

This year my plan was to open a second Coderdojo in the COBET Street Children School. I spent most of my time with the COBET school last year and their teacher of that time Rodney. Read about it here
Since then Rodney has taken a job in the bank but his wife Irene has taken over as the full-time computer teacher. Rodney still maintains a huge interest and participated in the Train the Trainer sessions with Africa Code Week in June. He also takes some pupils in his spare time to do some further work on coding with them-basically hosting an unofficial Coderdojo! Some of the COBET pupils also took part in the Africa Code week training sessions in June. 
He took a morning off work to catch up with me and was delighted with my plan of registering COBET as the second Coderdojo in Tanzania. We registered it in it's Swahili name MEMKWA and Rodney is the proud champion. 

​Publicity and articles following the opening of last years Coderdojo in Debrabant:
 

• Coderdojo Foundation website: https://coderdojo.com/news/2016/09/12/tanzanias-first-dojo/
• Journal.ie Irish News Website:  http://www.thejournal.ie/coderdojo-fifth-birthday-2980639-Sep2016/  
  
• My account of summer 2016:   www.folens.ie/content/eilis-treacy
• Irish Primary Teachers Magazine p.50/51:  http://www.into.ie/ROI/Publications/InTouch/2017/April2017/InTouch_April2017.pdf​​

The Matumaini Centre opened in 2009 and is the project of Sr Adriana. It is a colourful, peaceful and happy place for many disabled children and their mothers. Run totally on the generosity of donors, it provides physiotherapy, education and rehabilitation services for disabled children and their families.
The centres' main objectives are:
* Improve health and mobility through diet, exercise and hygiene. 
* Enable access to medical help. 
* Empower women who care for disabled children.                        
* Strengthen the self-esteem of children and carers. 
* Show them how to support themselves.
                                                                                                        ​Holy Union Sisters, Tanzania

Before this centre was built, disabled children had no support. There is a severe lack of services in Tanzania and especially in the very populated area of Mbagala. Over 400 families have accessed the services of Matumaini and 100 attend daily or twice weekly for exercises, training and advice.  For these mothers it is also a great social outlet and an break from long days in the home caring for their families.  Mothers chat and do exercises with their children while they wait for their child's turn for massages and exercise.  
Specially adapted equipment and toys are provided and as soon as they arrive the mothers get to work on their children.  Physiotherapists and other medical professionals visit from time to time to examine the children and to give training to the staff. 
Most walk to the centre but there is also a bus which picks up mothers and children. This bus is fully funded by a donor also. 

Maikol's workshop makes supportive furniture, toys and prosthetic devices. Many of the children wear these boots to help them walk and strengthen their legs. The centre produces aids for affordable fees which would otherwise be totally unattainable for these children.  

Mothers of disabled children have very limited employment opportunities. In Matumaini mothers can avail of a sewing course while they attend physiotherapy sessions with their child. On completion of the course, they take the sewing machine home with them and can work from their home.

The schoolroom provides access to education for these children, it also keeps children occupied while their mothers are sewing. One little character really enjoyed trying on my sunglasses!