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I do some work with a Catholic nun named Sister Placida, who is in
charge of Imani Vocational Training School, about a half hour south of
the Tanzanian city of Moshi. This school teaches a trade to
approximately 100 students who have completed primary school but could
not attend secondary school because their primary level examination
scores were not high enough or their families lacked the financial
means to pay. Given that there are only places in secondary schools
for around 1/3 of young Tanzanians, and that the average Tanzanian
lives on just over a dollar a day (not adjusted for purchasing power
parity), these are frequent occurrences. The students attend Imani for
2 years over which time they receive training in one of carpentry,
tailoring, embroidery, knitting, welding or electronics, skills that
will give the graduated students the means to earn a living and
support their future families. In the case of the disabled students of
Imani, of which there are numerous, these skills can make a
particularly significant improvement compared to the lives they would
otherwise have faced.
Sister Edelberta (left) and Sister Placida
It's common for institutions in Tanzania to be pretty short on cash,
and so many of them, in order to help finance their operations,
operate small food or income generating projects. These can be very
simple endeavours, such as farming the land surrounding the
institution, or they can be significantly more sophisticated—like
those that Sister Placida and Imani Vocational Training School are
busy implementing.
When I first began working with Sister Placida earlier this year, a
number of these income-generating or cost-reducing side projects were
already operational at Imani: the fields were farmed for maize, water
was being pumped out of the ground to irrigate a vegetable garden, and
pigs were being raised. The food generated from these activities is
used to feed the students, thereby reducing Imani's operating costs,
hence allowing it to improve the quality of its programs and/or
increasing the number of students it can educate.
Sister Placida is 60 years old, but strong and full of energy. To
reach her school from the city, a journey she usually makes at least a
couple times per week, she must first cram into a local rust-bucket
mini-bus (the legendary 'daladala') for a bumpy and dusty 40 minute
drive; this is followed by 15 equally bumpy and dusty minutes on the
back of a local man's bicycle. Despite her age and the at times
physically and mentally demanding nature of her role as director of
the rural school, she remains zestfully enthusiastic about her
devotion to helping people.
I particularly enjoy working with Sister Placida because she is
constantly seeking innovative ways that she can improve her
institution, and is not afraid to take a risk in implementing them.
Recently Sister Placida told me about a project that she had visited
where they had installed a drip irrigation system in their garden.
This drip irrigation system reduced water usage and improved yield by
dripping water exactly on the equally spaced plants in the garden. For
Imani, a reduction in water usage would mean a reduction in pumping,
and hence a lower monthly electricity bill; as for the students, the
garden would provide them with a more nutritious diet. We made a visit
to the drip-irrigation project together, and a couple weeks later she
and I were putting our amateur plumbing and pipe-laying skills to the
test. A month after that, and we were munching on fresh green salad
from the garden.
Imani's drip irrigation system at work
It was while I was working with Sister Placida and the other sisters
of Imani on installing this drip irrigation system that I was shown
another innovative side project on the go at the school. In some areas
of Tanzania, including the one surrounding Imani School, it is common
for people to fabricate their own bricks. They use a metal brick mould
to form and pack the soil into brick shapes, then burn the bricks in
home-made brick kilns over a period of a couple days to harden them.
Well Sister Placida, I was shown, had recently acquired a special
brick mould which instead of forming standard rectangular bricks,
formed bricks with angled edges that inter-locked with one another.
Because of the inter-locking nature of these bricks it is possible to
build significant portions of walls without the use of mortar between
layers, thereby reducing the cost of construction (a few cement ring
beams ensure that un-cemented but inter-locking bricks are well
compressed). Any new bricks that reduce costs of construction are
bound to be of some interest to the surrounding community, and Sister
Placida is currently considering approaches to market and sell them.
She's decided to lead by example, it seems, as she is constructing
classrooms and a building to house a maize milling machine out of
these special inter-locking bricks. The exposure that these buildings
will give to this cost-effective new building technique will, it is
hoped, drive demand for Imani's innovative product.
An inter-locking brick
The kiln that the inter-locking bricks burn in for three days
Collecting the wood shavings to fuel the kiln
The mould to create the inter-locking bricks
A partial wall constructed from inter-locking bricks
But there's more.
While working with Sister Placida on the plans for the maize milling
shelter, she told me about another income-generating project she had
seen: a fish pond. Yes, a fish pond. This was a new one on me, but
Sister Placida, with her contagious enthusiasm, told me it's possible
to essentially dig a big whole, line it with some special stuff, fill
the hole with water and fish, and after a few months get out your rod
and tackle box. Of course, I would soon discover, the process is a
little more complicated than that, but was nonetheless, according to
Sister Placida, do-able.
To my astonishment, a couple weeks later when I returned to Imani
Vocational Training School, Sister Placida had already begun the
creation of her fish pond. In fact the process was well underway: the
hole had been dug, the special soil had been laid on the bottom of the
pond to increase nutrition and reduce water loss, small marshy areas
of just a meter squared in size had been created to support insects
and plants (i.e. fish food), and a grid of colourful ropes had been
tied in criss-cross fashion just above the water level to prevent
birds from swooping down and indulging themselves. Water, in fact, was
filling the pond. When I expressed my surprise at the pace with which
this project had come to life, Sister Placida just smiled her
mischievous smile, and with a sparkle in her eye said, "In 3 months,
we will harvest."
Sister Placida is a mighty fine entrepreneur, and a very clever
person. The question I ask myself is this: what will Sister Placida's
next project be?
Fish pond a la Sister Placida
Despite her impressive developments, Sister Placida still occasionally
complains that only a lack of money is standing in the way of
implementing numerous worthy ideas. I find her experience to be all
too typical here in Tanzania, in towns as well as villages, with
organizations and with individuals. There are so many people with
good, no I will say great, ideas, but simply lack the relatively small
amounts of capital it would take to make their visions a reality. In
order to make sure money gets into these worthy hands, it is important
for us make a concerted effort towards increased integration. We must
get to know local people and their local ideas, add in an outsider’s
perspective when appropriate, and work with our overseas friends to
achieve success in the most efficient and effective way possible.
Tanzanian Moment of the Week
Below are pictures of three of the many bugs that have made
it into or near my house in the past couple months.
This is the kind of cricket that secretly crawled into my sock one day
My friend and informal employee Godfrey with a massive moth
A huge, green, flying, extremely creepy superbug
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