If you think students spend all their spare time avoiding studying, going out with their mates and having a good time then you'd be right. Well our student bloggers do anyway. While they assure us they don't slack on the study, they've got a lot to answer for when it comes to enjoying themselves while volunteering.

All | Emma | Olivia | Sammy | Ashley | Rochelle | Tom | TomG | Harry

Wednesday Dec 19, 2007

End of term report

I have now completed my first term as Project Leader of READ Book Project Warwick.  For those of you who haven't read my blog before the READ Book Projects are a part of READ International.  The charity aims to 'Realise Education to Allow Development'.  As a part of this, the project I lead (alongside two other project leaders) collects high-quality, disused textbooks from local secondary schools over the course of an academic year.  We then store them and raise money for them to be sent over to Tanzania where some of our volunteers will get the chance to distribute them amongst 20 schools in the summer.  Along the way our project will attempt to raise awareness of our cause and make a real effort to get into our local schools to educate children about what challenges their peers face day in day out in developing countries.  Hopefully we can give them the chance, through arranging to round up their own school's donated books, or raising some money for us to find some solutions to the problems countries like Tanzania are facing.

It has been a busy term.  Life as a project leader is markedly different then it is a volunteer.  Luckily this year we have had managed to recruit a very impressive group of students at Warwick University to help us, but even so the extra responsibility inevitably eats into your spare time.  However, it has been an absolute pleasure to watch 20 or so people put a huge amount of effort into something that you consider really important.  Going out to Tanzania in the summer and seeing some of the issues that the children there have to overcome really brings it all home how much of an impact we can make.  It really is worth it.

READ International has expanded quickly since it was first formed.  Starting at Nottingham University, it went to five others last year and now has 11 universities running READ Book Projects.  Back at the end of October the charity re-launched at the Houses of Commons.  Douglas Alexander (Minister for International Development) was present and spoke as well as the Tanzania High Commissioner in the UK.  Bruce Forsyth, Mick Jagger, Deila Smith and Toady from neighbours also made an appearance....

(Some, if not all of the last four names might have been lies).

 The point I am trying to make is that it is a charity that is going places.  It is being taken seriously both here (READ International won the award for Best New Charity in the UK and the Times Charity Awards this year) and in Tanzania.  It is giving me, and other young people the chance to do something about issues which to them are very important.

 This summer I have been given the chance to go back to Tanzania.  I will have a bit more responsibility and it will be more like a job.  With the beaches, the mountains, the beer, the rice, the sun, the rice, the temperatures, the rice, the people and the rice I can't think of a better way to spend a summer.  Well..a tropical island, unlimited Gin and Tonic and Liz Hurley wouldn't be objectionable.  But then I wouldn't get rice. 

Happy Christmas.   

 

Posted by Tom G ( 10:28 PM )
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Sunday Oct 07, 2007

Back in the UK

I returned from Tanzania a couple of weeks ago.  After book distribution we went to Zanzibar for a few days and had a launch event for our charity at the British Council in Tanzania.  The attendance of the British High Commissioner and other civil servants showed how seriously READ International and the work it does is being taken in the country.  The presence of some business men working for companies in Tanzania was also pleasing.  If the country is to continue its development then people like these are key.  Already a huge amount of western money is flowing into Tanzania.  If a bit of that could be diverted into projects which equip Tanzanian people to become successful and perhaps work for the companies which have provided the money in the first place the country could go along way to solving the problems it has at current.

The READ book projects are taking place at eleven UK universities this year.  This means the charity has effectively doubled in size.  People are every level of the charity, from the chairman and trustees, interns, project leaders and returning volunteers are working hard to ensure this expansion is a successful one.  At Warwick I and the other two project leaders have been hard at work this week recruiting volunteers, attempting to find warehouse space and planning how our year will take shape.  The goals of collecting 25,000 books, raising £10,000 and getting as much publicity as possible can be a bit daunting.  However if you get a group of committed people together it quickly becomes achievable.

At the start of last year, I was daunted by the targets.  However our group of volunteers became friends and had a laugh whilst we did most things.  I'm sure the same will happen this year.  Volunteering can be tough sometimes and it's not always the fun, satisfying experience people advertise it as.  However in the end, if it's a cause you believe in, and with a group of people you like it can become very enjoyable.  I think above everything that's what I will take from the project last year and my trip to Tanzania.  I could blather on about our achievements, personal fulfilment, personal development (probably my most hated phrase, up there with 110%) and the like but most of all I had fun.  I had fun collecting the books.  I had fun fundraising.  I had fun in Tanzania.  I saw some pretty depressing things, that make you realise how much work there is still to be done but I was with a fantastic group, saw some fantastic things and laughed.  A lot. 

What more could you ask for?

Posted by Tom G ( 12:00 AM )
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Tuesday Sep 11, 2007

Book Distribution

Hello again,

The past week and a half has seen the volunteers from Warwick University distributing books to schools around Mtwara region in southern Tanzania.  This has been an interesting and sometimes rewarding experience.  Last week we visited the various districts in Mtwara, distributing to about three schools a day.  It was hard work, as at each school there is a set procedure we follow, talking to the headmaster, the teachers and the students.  We do this to ensure to books will be properly used, and not hidden away in cupboards or anything. 

When the teachers are interested, the pupils enthusiastic and the headmaster welcoming it is easy to feel satisfied and that you really have achieved something by collecting the textbooks and bringing them out to Tanzanian as a free donation.  However this has not been the reaction in every school.  A lot of teachers ask for more, wanting to know why we aren’t providing science equipment or laboratories, some headmasters ask us for money to buy transport for the school and in one school it was obvious that the children had been primed to tell us that the books weren’t enough and they wanted more.

I’m not criticizing the children or the teachers (I do however think that the headmasters display a slightly bizarre attitude when they say their greatest need is for a car, when their schools don’t have water or electricity), infact I think that have a valid point.  What we are doing as a charity is only scraping the surface.  However when you have worked hard all year to achieve something you really believe in because you want to give children who don’t have as much as we did a little bit more it is an attitude that can be a bit disappointing.   I would like to be able to do more and I’m sure my fellow volunteers would too.

The fact is though that we can’t.  Not yet anyway.  One night after discussing the sentiments I have expressed above I realized this disappointed attitude lacked a little faith.  I am sure that out of the twenty five schools we will give books too, ten might not use then to their full potential, in five schools books might go missing and in another five the pupils might not have as much access to them as we ask too.  However if only in one school the books are used properly I would be happy.  If only one or two children learnt something new I would be happy.  That is a better situation than before.  Some people work their whole entire lives to change or better just a few people’s lives.  I have been lucky enough, through READ, to have the chance to do that already. 

The point I am trying to make, is that often in development and with the issues I have highlighted in my previous blogs, the issues can become so complex that it is easy to become disillusioned.  Imposing on someone else’s culture, aid dependency, tied aid and debt are all serious issues that need discussing and should be the focus of acamdemic debate.  Let us not forget though that a lot of people around the world are doing lots of good things on a very simple level.  To me, READ is successful because it is keeping things simple.  How can you go wrong by giving books?  They might get stolen, but if the person steals them what else are they going to do with them but read them.  They might get sold on but again they are going to be read.  READ cannot at present provide science labs, teacher training, water infrastructure or buildings.  It can give books and any impact these have, however small, however much it disappoints your original expectations should be celebrated.  By giving books, something has changed and more choices open up.  What after all is development about if it is not giving people more choices?

Having said all of this, and being proud of what the Warwick Tanzanian Book project has achieved, what READ has achieved and what me the other volunteers out here have achieved there is always scope for more.  Next year I think we can give more books, I think we can raise more money.  More than this I think READ can do more to ensure these books are used and understood.  This is not disappointment, but ambition.  Right now I am proud, but next year I want to be prouder.  

Posted by Tom G ( 4:00 PM )
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Tuesday Aug 21, 2007

Guilt Trip and partnerships

Hello,

Yesterday I accepted a seemingly innocent invitation to go and visit an orphanage in a village outside the town we are staying in.  After a bus journey and lengthy cycle I came to the village with my giude (the head of the orphanage) to find that infact no orphange existed.  Ahhhhh 'but there are plans, mister Tom'  the orphanage head said..'there are plans'. What there was was an open space, with a few bricks strewn about.  'But Mister Tom we cannot make the orphange without money'.  It quickly  became apparent that this was the aim of taking me to see the site of the proposed orphanage.  I lunched with this mans family (all used to white people, as the head of the orphanage said he brings westerners often) and everyone was very polite.  Was this a scam?  Was i right to feel a bit put out?  The head (Charles was his name, well charles to his friends, but insisted on being known as Prince Charles to people who just knew him) was very nice to me, and his company meant I could venture to a village I wouldn't have otherwise.  But the fact is I'm am already here doing charity work and that he knew this made it feel like a bit much.  The trip he took me on was a very slick operation, designed ( i felt) to persuade me into donating money. 

What exactely the money would go on was unclear.  For me, vague notions of an orphanage are not enough.  Much better the sort of planned development, working in partnership with local people that READ international promotes.  Later Charles took us to a secondary school, perhaps thinking that we could donate this school books as this is what our charity does.  However the region the school was in is not one high on the priority list READ works on.  This priority list is given to us by the Tanzanian Ministry of Education and the partnership READ has with them is extremely important to its ethos as a charity.  Without this partnership, our work would not only be much less useful but conform to the old stereotype of western aid swooping in to make everything right again.  The bare fact is that we have no clue what is best for the poeple here, which schools and which districts need books the most.  We can make a judgement but it is based on a very shallow interpretation of what little knowledge we have.

READ recognises this.  As a student charity, it could raise money all year for 'Princes Charles Orphanage'.  Behaps we could drop in a few comments about how aids is robbing tanzanian children of their parents.  Perhaps, just perhaps this would be a more attractive propisition for the people we stop on the street and ask for money than raising money to send textbooks is.  However it would not be right.  With READ'S empathsis on us volunteers working with the local people, and aiding national policy, we can perhaps give a part of a generation of Tanzanian's the skills to help themselves.  Charles wanted me to do everything for him.  He wanted me to give him money, and on hearing I couldnt, he wanted me to apply for him to interanational charities.  By doing this I would not be empowering or developing.  I would be giving money to a man, with a vague plan, and with no guarentee it would be spent on what he said. 

When people give to READ, or support it in any way, they can be sure they are giving to a charity that is not only accountable to the west's vigarous charity laws but also accountable to Tazanians.  We ensure this by working in partnerships, and by going to local people with a plan and seeing how they want to work it.  Empowerment, development, call it what you want.  But to me, asking local people what they want us to do for them is just common sense.

Tom G

 

Posted by Tom G ( 1:19 PM )
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Saturday Aug 18, 2007

From Tanzania - Cruel to be kind?

Hello,

A week ago I left the UK to fly to Dar es Salaam, the capital of Tanzania.  After a weekend on the beach, meeting volunteers from the other READ projects at different universities around the country I have set off on a research trip to three regions in Tanzania which READ hopes to send textbooks to next year.

Each region's REO (regional education officer) will be asked to pick 20 schools from his region out of a possible 60 or 70 to have books donated to them.  At first this selection process seems hard, all the secondary schools are short on books, all want more books and all the children are as worthy as each other to be given the chance to have access to more textbooks.  How do you then make the decision of which 20 schools should recieve the books?

It was only really yesterday, when I looked in at four different schools in the Rukwa region of Tanzania that I realised why it was so important to be selective.  Firstly, by distributing large sets of textbooks to 20 schools, instead of a few to say 50 schools, it is possible perhaps to change what happens here already with textbooks, that one is shared between 10 or more children.  Secondly, by making it clear to the schools that only a few of them will be chosen to recieve textbooks, it may mean that they make an extra effort to fufil our criteria for selection, namely that the school ensures children will have access to books when they want and the school will encourage a culture of reading.  

Yesterday I saw a good example of this.  I visited a private school, funded by a mission, which had lovely buildings and was undeniably the best 'learning environment'  we saw.  However the source of funds for this school, whilst ensuring it looked nice, seemed to draw the line at supplying it adaquetly with resources.  It had less textbooks per child than the government funded schools.  However, the teachers we met were very switched on and alert.  After I had said the READ spiel, they immediately were asking how they could ensure thier school got the books, talked about a library, book loaning system and after school book clubs.  Although this school, and its pupils were undoutably 'better off' than some of the government schools we saw it as clear they would make the most efficient use of the books.  Thus the question that seems to dog so many development decision occurs; do you give donations where it is most needed, or where it will be used to the greatest effect?

Two years ago, I worked in a school in Borneo for three months.  The village was desperately poor, farming enough only to feed themselves and living in pretty poor conditions.  Yet they had a well built school and suprisingly for that area a library that was as well stocked as any English Primary school's might have been.  However the library was not used, the school badly attended and when it was the behaviour of the children terrible.  It was obvious these children had no respect for education, in fact the only education that mattered to them was one of learning how to survive off th land.  The three months that followed were intersting but ultimately a waste of time.  I could not teach these children anything. 

The point I am trying to make is controversial and not as simple as I might make it seem.  However it seems to me that in development and donations we should look far beyond to immediate gratification that a donation might cause.  Books are poccessions and they will cause underpriviledged children to smile and adults to think you are brilliant.  However if they are not used, then all we have done by giving them is make ourselves feel better.  By being harsher and more deliberative perhaps development charities can make more of a difference and a meaningful one.  Perhaps it is wrong to get ahead of ourselves before basic aid is in place.  Perhaps we find these basics boring and do not want to be involved in them.     

Speak soon,

TomG

Posted by Tom G ( 7:21 AM )
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Wednesday Aug 01, 2007

Hello!

Hello,

My name is Tom Gray and I'm a second year student at Warwick University.  I got involved in some conservation work whilst at school, going to Borneo and since then Belize to take part in eco-tourism projects and teaching.  At this point voluntary work and the voluntary sector seemed like an interesting sideline, something to dabble in but then leave behind for seemingly loftier ambitions.

Going to university after a gap year changed this viewpoint.  I began to fancy doing something a bit different with my life.  I got into volunteering not because of high morals and a chance to make a difference, but simply because the type of work you get to do seems interesting.  I might get to travel, I might get to work with local people in cultures I know nothing about, I might get to organise a project from beginning to end and get that sense of satisfaction you get when you know everything has gone well.  Of course I might not get a chance to do any of these things and I might change my mind.  A career in London, with a suit, an office, a comfortable wage, ski-ing holidays, good restaurants and bars and a gym membership has it attractions.  However at the moment I am determined to give something different a go, it would seem silly not to try and who knows what doors may open.

Working for READ international has been one door that has opened since being at university.  The organisation runs projects in several UK universities, collecting textbooks from local schools and sending them to Tanzania, where they are distributed (with advice and guidance) to schools which need them.  These books would have otherwise been thrown away, filling landfills up and down the country.  Instead some (the useful ones which fit the Tanzanian syllabus and come in sets) are recycled and used again.  For me READ seems to optimise the benefits that a well thought out development scheme can bring.  It gives no huge donations, employs minimal paid employees, places responsibility and autonomy in the hands of its volunteers and operates to a successful business model repeated across its projects in universities. 

From volunteering last year, I am going on to become one of three project leaders next year.  This summer I am going to Tanzania with the books and have become involved in the charities fundraising and branding strategy.  The charity will move forward with ambition and professionalism, both qualities which it is increasingly embodying.  It does an awful lot of good for children in Africa but also children here, giving school presentations wherever possible to raise awareness.  It is a low cost, low overhead but high impact charity in its infancy.  I feel lucky to have become a part of it.  I will be in touch again soon.

Tom G    

Posted by Tom G ( 3:29 PM )
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