Progressreport 2007

All is well that ends well? We closed the year with a strategy meeting together with a delegation from LISO Switzerland Foundation. LISO needs to restructure in order to be more effective and efficient, more strategically positioned and less vulnerable to local obstructive forces, more structured and better capable of growing. After 7 years of operation such a review was highly due.

By the time of finalising this report the LISO board has agreed on the strategic plan, which is prepared separately from this annual report. We will strengthen the board as well as management. We will continue focussing mainly on education and especially on the quality aspects of education. Our main entry point will be the Teachers Resource Centres (TRCs) for the biggest impact and the best guarantee for sustainability of the structural improvements that we aim at. Health education activities will temporarily be stopped, and revived at a time when we have better prepared ourselves for it. Also we will probably give health education primarily at schools. The tree nursery will be reduced in scope, retaining only its research component and in a later stage we may do some training on tree nursery techniques, probably including schools.

The organisation LISO Switzerland Foundation (LISO-CH) was set up to support LISO strategically and is registered in Switzerland. Like LISO-The Netherlands (LISO-NL) it aims at supporting us with advice and in fundraising for LISO as an organisation, as well as for its projects. The above evaluation/strategy planning session is a good example of the anticipated cooperation.

Even before the meeting with LISO-CH, a situational analysis workshop was held with the District Education Officer, the District Schools Inspector and the Bashanet Ward Education Coordinator, who was the initiator of the Bashanet Teachers Resource Centre (TRC). Due to time constraints of the officers from Babati, we jointly decided that LISO should go ahead with the planning, together with the TRC Coordinators that had in the meantime been appointed, plus the Bashanet Ward Education Officer. The results of these meetings formed the basis for the discussions with LISO-CH where the programmatic strategic direction was concerned.

Our car was repaired and put back on the road. Actually it became more reliable than before, in the sense that it requires less maintenance, though still considerable. So we sold it. In January we obtained a car that requires less maintenance, which still serves us well. Unfortunately it has less engine capacity, which with our roads…

Our Office Manager has left for greener pastures in July. Unfortunately on extremely short notice and leaving quite some work unfinished. We waited for the strategic planning exercise to pass. After that new staff will be acquired, according to the strategies. We will opt for people with more specific skills and experience.

We hosted 1 German volunteer (Form 6 leaver), Hannah, for one year and 1 Dutch (M.Sc. holder), Roelfke, for two months. Hannah lent a hand in many projects, mainly in the computer course and developed the newsletter. Roelfke mainly made an inventory of our books and magazines, categorising and cataloguing them. We benefited a lot from them, one especially because she staid so long and joined in many activities, one because of the specific job she did that was highly needed. It is worthwhile to host volunteers more often, though we should make more time available for supervision, especially if one falls ill. Luckily none got any serious illness.

EDUCATION PROJECTS

Primary education

TSH 2,869,500 was used to support 8 primary school projects. The following schools and projects were supported, with the balance for the meetings and communications.

School (ward)	Project/activity	Support
Donya (Bashanet)	Roofing a classroom	300,000
Patrick Winters (Dareda)	Books	300,000
Getabuske (Bashanet)	Doors and windows in a teacher’s house	300,000
Kwankwari (Bashanet)	Furniture	600,000
Dareda Mission (Dareda)	Water supply	300,000
Mandi (Dabil)	Finishing permanent toilet construction	300,000
Mandagew (Bashanet)	Furniture	300,000
Maganjwa (Dabil)	Finishing permanent toilet construction	300,000

From the above it is clear that the biggest interest in LISO cooperation is from Bashanet ward, where we supported 4 schools.

Schools that received support before, finalised their respective projects, but requiring quite some time. After a recommendation from the evaluation meeting with teachers, new contracts are more specific and firm about finishing projects on time. This has already proven useful.


Sports in primary schools

Sports gear was handed to winners of a sports tournament. Plus sports gear was handed out to enthusiastic schools that had been quick to finish a project successfully, in the presence of the respective donor representatives. Still not all schools have benefited. One football (boys), netball (girls) and volleyball (mixed) team in each of three wards was given a set of jerseys, the runner-up a ball for the respective sport.

Furthermore a running tournament was organised in each ward where prizes came from LISO. The winning boy respectively girl received a first prize of 10,000, second 7,500 and third prize 5,000. So a total of 22,500 for each gender in each ward, making it TSH 135,000 in total. Plus LISO added to some other costs, especially a lunch as the schools could not organise this. In future a contract will probably be signed beforehand as we do for individual school support. The fastest boy and girl of each ward were to contest in the Babati Half Marathon at 31.12.2007, on top of above cash prize. Unfortunately that event had to be postponed. We will give them an alternative, at least the trip to Babati, as most children have never visited Babati.

Parents initially saw the sports as a nice attraction only, but were quick to realise that in the weeks of preparations for the tournaments school attendance increased. And even some weeks after the tournaments some of the “permanent absentees” remained attending classes. After two years of LISO involvement with tournaments, sports are now accepted by a major part of the community as beneficial to the quality of education.


Secondary education

Bashanet ward is constructing 3 new secondary schools to absorb the increase in students. We supported the newly founded Masabeda Secondary School construction with TSH 500,000. It gave us a good opportunity for discussions with several stakeholders in preparation for the education strategies meeting in December.

After the government invested in primary schools for some years, now a major investment in secondary education is of paramount importance and actually overdue. The District Education Office strongly pleads for NGOs to invest in secondary education and teacher education through the TRCs, rather than primary education, where the peak growth seems to be over. While the government and the community are focussing on buildings so as to absorb the big numbers of students, there is a need for NGOs to focus on quality. This can mean additional teaching and learning materials, sports facilities and extra-curricular competitions so as to practice what they learn, laboratory construction and materials, as well as teacher updating and upgrading. As in primary education, there is an enormous shortage of teachers and the government has embarked on a crash course for teachers. These new teachers have not been able to obtain the skills in their months training that their colleagues obtained in 3 year training. Especially troublesome are Mathematics, English and Teaching Methodology.


Teachers Resource Centres (TRCs)

We managed to support Bashanet TRC with 6,250,000 for roofing. The district authorities had intended to roof it, but failed to secure funds. LISO therefore decided to use the money intended for doors, plastering, etc, for this, plus some money intended for primary schools. The main beneficiaries will be primary school teachers, though later the scope will expand, so this seemed a good use of primary school funds. All materials were purchased and during February or March 2008 the roof should be finished.

The government employed a coordinator to start training at the centre, which should now also service Madunga and Ufana wards, apart from Bashanet. As construction had stalled for so long, LISO secured funding for the first training session of one week. This fully revived the teacher enthusiasm. The coordinator was assisted in training by local teachers with competencies in certain topics. Not only is this a clever use of local resources, but also is a form of appreciation for the more topic-competent teachers. TSH 650,000 was used for this training.

In Dareda also a TRC Coordinator has been appointed, where a TRC should be started to service Arri, Dareda and Dabil wards. LISO funded a study tour to Endasak TRC in neighbouring Hanang District with TSH 241,500. All head teachers from the area went, as well as the ward education coordinators and TRC committee, a total of 32 people. This was an eye opener, as some had never visited a TRC; others had not thought it possible for such a centre to have such impact in a rural area. What is possible in Endasak should be possible in Dareda too. In Dareda Zone a training session was conducted using the teachers’ own resources. Such self-funding will be used in the future, with some initial LISO support, especially in obtaining teaching and learning materials.

The government has employed a total of 6 TRC coordinators, but the one LISO is assisting in Bashanet is the first construction in the district. Already the Bashanet coordinator has been approached by others for advice on how he managed to get the funding.


Computer course

Towards the end of the year it started attracting a few more participants, still not the numbers we expected. Even those teachers who were to get the course for free or against a reduced fee did not turn out in the numbers we expected. Our computer teacher was not in good health and had to go for treatment several times, which did not do the course any good either, and word of this spread, which will have contributed to the low turn-out. We keep receiving higher numbers of participants from outside the district than from within our area.

We received two Pentium III laptops from a company in The Netherlands that are now part of our course. And they came right in time, as briefly after their arrival 2 computers broke down beyond repair.

Using our classroom as an internet café is more popular. Ours is the nearest point from where Internet can be accessed and people are prepared to pay for it. We charge the same fee per hour as in Babati, which is double what is being charged in Arusha.

The course and internet café together pay for all running costs, including the teacher’s monthly fee, except for the satellite dish subscription. This means that it raises some 36% of the combined costs. Of course the dish is also used for our office communication. Unfortunately it is the only option for reliable internet access and email communication at the moment, but expensive indeed.

Furthermore the dish serves educational purposes, as we regularly receive groups of secondary school students looking for information on school projects, like pollution, population growth, forestry, etc. Also a few occasions a class from a primary school visited because they would like to know what computers are. None of the primary or secondary school students had seen a computer before, let alone know how to use it. We did not charge for the service, knowing that they would not be able to pay anything. Plus it is good PR for LISO.

TREE NURSERY AND TREE PLANTING

Our tree nursery was bigger than ever, containing some 25,000 seedlings, of some 33 species. Due to time constraints we could not gather as many forest seedlings and seeds as in 2006. The forest species were sold very easily. We even got buyers from Karatu, Mbulu and Katesh, who came specifically because someone had told them of our forest species.

We build a shed, under which we raise budded Orange and Mandarin and grafted Avocado. This way rainwater cannot cause the bud or grafted twig to rot, and there is no burning sunlight. Ours is the only tree nursery where budding and grafting is done and the trees are readily sold.

Our nursery staff trained the Harakati Women Group to start their nursery and the group had quite some success. They sold all seedlings and even bought some more from LISO for a reduced price and sold these too. This was very beneficial for building self-confidence of the women group, as well as good for our staff motivation, as our nursery staff did the training. The women group assisted us several times in awareness raising about female genital mutilation, their reason for starting the group, and HIV/AIDS awareness raising. The tree nursery is their income generating project.

The Harakati group in Bashanet and a group in Maganjwa village received some polythene tubing to start their tree nursery with. Now that they sold trees they can continue buying them themselves from Babati.

During the January – April planting season we gave out some 3,000 seedlings to plant at 25 springs. The survival rate is some 70-80%, which is very high, especially considering the fact that most springs are not fenced.

HEALTH AWARENESS

Awareness raising on HIV/AIDS and the availability of antiretroviral drugs

The campaign, a tender from Dareda Hospital, continued. We organised public meetings where artists, a medical professional and HIV infected people explain about HIV and inform people that testing is available for free and nowadays the antiretroviral drugs are also available and for free. After some successful events, and people turning up the next day both at the hospital and (unfortunately) even the LISO office with a request to be tested, we teamed up with a counselling and testing team from Dareda Hospital and did the testing during the event. We managed to test 100-150 people during each afternoon of an event. This had never been done before. The hospital was so enthused about this that they sought more funding and requested us to do another two events, which we did. It earned LISO a lot of goodwill, but limited amounts of money. It was barely more than cost recovery.

The HIV-infected people’s association of Dareda (WAVIDA) received training on writing a funding proposal. Unfortunately the members’ educational status is such that they will need continued support in proposal writing and probably in reporting as well. LISO does not currently have the manpower to assist them in this.

In neighbouring Arri ward a similar association was started towards the end of the year, Arri People LIving with HIV/AIDS (APLIA). We see this as a sign that slowly the taboo is being broken down, and feel confident that LISO’s awareness raising campaign and the inclusion of WAVIDA has helped considerably in this. Also in the campaign we included religious and tribal leaders. They keep repeating messages about reducing stigma during their sermons and in their meetings.


Cataract surgery course

At the end of the year doctor Michael Sanka passed his exams and finished his course and is now doing an internship as a last leg before returning to Dareda.


Handicapped

Martha Ng’aida, after finishing her sewing course in Arusha, stayed at home some months. She then teamed up with a friend and is now sewing in Masakta village, where her friend is teaching a beginners course. Her friend assists her where, which is especially needed in taking measures, as Martha is still not sufficiently literate.

The troubles with the handicapped association, of which some then-members accused LISO of wrongdoing, are still lingering. The chairman admitted in writing that he gave misleading information on LISO and on the relationship between LISO and the association, freeing LISO of all blame. Still district authorities have not closed the matter officially.

FINALLY

LISO will continue its work with equal vigour, though with probably a change in focus, depending on the outcome of the strategic planning meetings in early 2008. But whatever the outcome, we keep believing in the capacity of the people to find solutions for their problems and we keep struggling to support them in realising those solutions.

A word of thanks to our donor organisations and individuals who supported us is more than appropriate. Our enthusiasm alone would not be sufficient. We hope that after the restructuring and with written down strategies in place, they will be able to continue their support.