By Seth Markle, Assistant Professor of History & International Studies

This past summer I had the pleasure of serving as an on-site faculty adviser for the Trinity student-led organization, the African Development Coalition (ADC) and its project in Tanzania (East Africa). In working closely with the Ministry of Health, NGOs and local leaders, ADC built a maternity ward in the under-resourced village of Lotima in Himo. “The idea of the organization is each year to pick one African country that we want to learn about,” said ADC co-founder and chairman Ibrahim Diallo. “We conduct extensive research on the country and come up with a project that we feel reflect the challenges that the country is facing. We then fund raise for the project and over the summer travel to the selected country to carry out the project.” In its first year, ADC renovated a crumbling primary school in a small village in Guinea, installed a clean drinking water pump in the school and built a house for teachers. Last year, ADC went to Sierra Leone and built three computer labs housing a total of 80 computers in the oldest university in West Africa, Fourah Bay College.The ADC project in Tanzania is designed to empower villagers whose quality of life is hampered by the lack of health-related resources.

Village community involvement was consistent and forthcoming in the provision of gravel, sand and labor for the construction. The Tanzania’s Ministry of Health also promised that two doctors will be assigned to the village following the completion of the project. In carrying out this ambitious task, ADC teamed up with Afri Roots Adventures (Dar es Salaam), an echo-tourism initiative dedicated to local business development, village-based conservation and environmental justice. Mejah Mbuya, co-founder and co-owner of Afri Roots, said this type of collaboration spoke directly to the philosophy of Afri Roots in working with local communities, and having its members, as well as volunteers, become active agents of social change.

I found that this project held much significance since 2011 marked Tanzania’s fiftieth year of independence. For close to 20 years (1967-1985), Tanzania embarked on socialist path of development where a culture of volunteerism was stressed by President Julius Nyerere. “It is positive in the sense that it is a continuation of a culture of volunteerisim that was cultivated during Nyerere’s time. However it is not the same thing because the government had a policy of forced volunteer work. Today, the popular slogan is ‘One World, One Village’ and this project reflected that idea of global citizenship, especially for young people,” Mbuya remarked. The ADC-led project also coincided with government’s pledge to improve the public health sector. Despite rapid urbanization, the majority of Tanzanian people remain in the rural areas mostly living as subsistence farmers and petty traders. By committing to this two-tiered collaboration, both regional and local elected officials all agreed that the maternity ward would help improve the living standards of the approximately 15,000 residents make up the three major villages of Himo, including Lotima.

Expectations were high, but so was the enthusiasm for the project. The students put in long hours, working 12-13 hours a day, 6 days a week. For me, I found myself in constant travel, doing outreach with NGOs and meeting with journalists in Dar es Salaam and Mohsi. While there were some setbacks, the commitment shown by the students was impressive, and to build a maternity ward from scratch in 6 weeks was amazing thing to witness.

For more information on ADC and its Tanzania project, go HERE.