Monday 30 May 2016

Hamjambo from Tanzania!

Hey Everyone,
            We are SIHA’s International Travel Team reporting to you live from Mlandizi, Tanzania. SIHA is a student-run University of Alberta-based health program organization situated in the non-governmental field of public health. The 2016 team decided to start this blog to better inform potential SIHA applicants, future travel team members, and sponsors about the work we really do here.
We are all excited to have arrived in Tanzania and have spent the first week settling in: getting the hang of the local market, embracing bucket showers, and researching projects. Our team this year consists of our lovely project manager (Allie), our senior advisor (Jacqueline), two community consultants (Gladness and Charles - without whom we would be lost), in-country representative (Melkiory), as well as six travel team members: Moni, Jonas, Diana, Maria, Morg. A, and Morg. S. Our projects this summer are related to maternal health, malaria prevention, water access, and support of local organizations involved in health promotion. As SIHA as an organization is currently undergoing a transition from resource-based projects towards capacity building, our role this summer is to reassess our current projects so they better align with SIHA’s updated vision and mission.
This upcoming week we will be meeting with community members from Kikongo and Mwanabwito (the villages we work in) to inform the next steps to take with our projects. Work aside, our whole team travelled to Bagamoyo on Sunday and spent the day drinking coconuts, playing sports, and relaxing on the beach. Yes, it’s not all work over here! We have all fully adopted the concept of ‘Africa time’ but we will try and send out an update once a week.

Asante Sana (Thank you very much!)


If you want more information on SIHA check out our website. www.siha.ca


(Charles and Diana are missing!)