Computers, English and goodbye!

Dear help2kids friends, here is Francesca and this will be my last blog! After all these amazing months with help2kids, it's now time for me to move forward in my career and studies and say goodbye. I will always keep in my heart great memories about the time spent here, about my lovely kids, my smiley staff and my energetic volunteers. The new Field Manager Karina already arrived here and I am now concluding my hand over to her. She will officially introduce herself in the next blog so don’t miss it!

This last week has been smooth and quiet: the school has begun and the kids are putting lots of efforts in keeping up with the lessons. We are all proud of them because they all have good records and performances. Nuru and Neema are really happy about their new school and we are grateful to the generosity of Adriana Burkard and Ruth Schnellmann. They are attending a really good school bordering with the Children's Home so their safety is granted and their education will improve. The girls at the beginning were a little sad to say goodbye to the old school-mates but they already have new friends now in the new school.

Our volunteers’ team is working hard in order to improve the skills of the kids, especially in English, reading, writing, mathematics and IT. And so far the weekly schedule is busy for everybody: the mornings are dedicated to the preparation of the afternoon’s lessons and they are really focusing on it. Around 10.30 it's time to go to pick up the little kids from school and to bring them back to the Children's Home, where the volunteers are busy with little chores - such as assisting the Mamas in lunch preparation and washing uniforms. Afterwards the children nap and everybody is happy to have a little rest, especially since the heat is really extreme at the moment! As soon as our children are awake they start learning and playing. And until the end of the afternoon all the members of the Children's Home are really busy in different activities.

Furthermore our volunteers are involved also in other two hel2kids projects: the English School and the newly born IT lessons at the Wamato Primary School. Concerning the English School, we are now in charge of Standard IV and Standard VI and the lessons are about English review, grammar, some mathematics. The volunteers follow the Tanzanian Primary School syllabus so we are sure that we will integrate our extra-lessons with the normal program developed by the Ministry of Education and normally followed by the school.

The newest project, the IT lessons, just begun and so far is going very well. We are teaching IT to Standard VII students. So far the lessons were a general introduction about computer and its utility in working. And then we started to teach the students how to type: most of them have never seen a computer before so we had to begin for the basis, like how to use the touch pad, how to do shift, space, capital letters. We do think that a solid computer knowledge is essential for the students is order to be able to attend Secondary School, eventually University and have a good job in the future. Nowadays everything is about internet and technology, that’s why we decided to run this new project.

Finally our new kids, Francisca, Selma, Angela, Riziki and Costantine, have painted their handprints on the wall at the Friendly Gecko Guest House, which now looks really nice! Have a look to the pictures and don’t forget to visit also the guest house website: http://www.friendlygecko.com/

Well, my dearest readers. Is time to say goodbye! It was a pleasure to work with help2kids and to keep you updated with new blogs. My successor Karina will write more in the new blog. Thanks for all your support and please, keep supporting us: we always need you!

Kwa heri,

Francesca
Director Tanzania