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World Vision Youth Ambassadors: Breanna meets Naligawa

Mambo Marafiki! Hey Friends! Our last blog concluded with a bittersweet goodbye to all the Tanzanian and Rwandan Youth that we had befriended throughout the four-day youth forum. For many of us, it was our first real chance to be involved with a development project. Listening and learning about the issues they face and their solutions really broadened our understanding, and helped us gain a new perspective for the hardships these people face everyday mentality. The youth expressed so much strength and determination, striving to overcome the challenges they are surrounded by such as famine, disease and lack of life sustaining provisions.

The following incredible and life changing days were filled with observing and only beginning to understand the reality of extreme poverty. We visited the Area Development Projects in the Kinampanda and Mtinko villages. On Friday, we visited two families not yet helped by World Vision. Both families were struggling to find enough food, clean water, make medical visits, earn an income and send their children to school. We saw how families stored their often minuscule harvests on the roof as protection against animals. One family with a particularly small harvest needed their crop, their sole food source, to last until the next harvest in June, yet their supply would only last until September. Less than two months. The parents were really at a loss. How could they provide for their family? The solution was for the father to approach his neighbors and ask for their compassion and aid, or to enter the village in the hopes of finding casual labour. The look on his face made the desperation of his reality all too clear to us.

Despite these hardships, the two daughters in the family shyly expressed their plans to become a doctor and a teacher respectively to the Mzungus (white people). You could see their mother’s face shine with pride as she envisioned their career ambitions. However, the reality for children like Maria and Ella is that without aid their future is nearly identical to that of their parents. They will marry, have children they most likely cannot provide for, farm a small plot of land and struggle to make ends meet. Sickness and disease also play their part. Maria suffers from malaria and the family cannot afford the expensive medical treatment. Maria’s chances of survival are slim. These field-visits really opened our eyes to the desperate situation that are the norm for so many people in Tanzania. The experience, though difficult to witness, truly strengthened our passion to fight poverty.

That afternoon, Breanna was given the rare opportunity to visit her sponsored child of four years who coincidentally just happened to be at a school we were visiting! The whole group was met by a swarm of hundreds of laughing and excited children who were amazed at our “funny” skin tone. Among them was Naligawa, Breanna’s sponsor child. Speaking with him and his mother, Breanna learned how the four-year long sponsorship had truly transformed Naligawa and his family’s circumstances. The family expressed that they felt so blessed and explained how they had benefited. Naligawa was able to go to school having been provided with school fees, uniform and books; they had received agriculture and HIV/AIDS awareness education and talked of how sustainability in their community had become a focus. It was an unbelievable experience to have met Naligawa and his classmates who didn't want to see us go!

We had a hilarious time when the schoolchildren asked us to sing them a “traditional” Canadian song. We stood together, choir style, and busted out a shaky rendition of “This Land.” Our performance was a little bland, but we had an awesome time and the kids did too!