School Expedition Blogs

Day #4 - Thursday (15th June) Thursday was one of my favourite days so far! It started off with a late breakfast at 8am - something which was definitely appreciated. We then spent the majority of the day at Fuka, a local school and children's home, where we had the wonderful opportunity to play with what seemed like hundreds of children. We met so many people and got to hear their stories during the short time we had with them. After the games finished, we helped paint the children’s home – "Sarah Hardie House". It felt so good to help with even the smallest of things. That evening we went out for a meal. I…

Monday 12th Monday started with a visit to the headquarters of Tanzania Women Research Foundation (TAWREF), one of Vine Trust's partners in Tanzania, where we were greeted with a welcome song sung by all the staff, before listening to a presentation about their work. We were then able to visit the gift shop, where a couple people made some questionable fashion choices when buying shirts! We then drove to both of our home-building worksites and started digging foundations for the houses. Visiting the sites was an eye-opening experience - witnessing the nature of the extreme poverty faced by these communities left many of us quite emotional. However, we made sure…

Day #1 - Monday On our first day we had a team briefing in the morning, followed by a visit to the office of Tanzania Women Research Foundation (TAWREF), one of Vine Trust’s local partners in Tanzania, for an eye-opening presentation. After purchasing a few gifts for family and friends back home, we went to Moshi Christian Children’s Centre, where we played football and games with the children, using some of the donations we brought to Tanzania with us. It was a good introduction to what we will be doing over the next couple of weeks. - Freddie R and…

Expedition blog from Perth Grammar School, Arran High School and Carluke High School Given that we head off on safari at 6am tomorrow, this may well be the last blog from our expedition before we leave Tanzania on Friday night to return to Scotland on Saturday. Sunday saw most of the group opt to attend an English-language at the church linked to Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Centre (KCMC), the local hospital in Moshi. KCMC is the second biggest hospital in Tanzania, and a major teaching hospital in this area, so many medical students from across the African continent choose to study here. The 2 hour…

Expedition blog from Perth Grammar School, Arran High School and Carluke High School It's been a very busy couple of days, so I'm afraid we haven't had much time to update our blog! On Wednesday, the teams switched back to the worksites we first visited on day 1, and we were immediately able to see the progress that had been made. After a busy day of home-building, we enjoyed en evening meal at Deli Chez, and got to experience ‘Moshi at night’ with all the hustle and bustle, as well as that ‘tropical’ night time noise - the buzz of the insects - and the star filled…

Expedition blog from Perth Grammar School, Arran High School and Carluke High School A busy couple of days in Tanzania has seen us visit the offices of TAWREF (Tanzania Women Research Foundation), one of Vine Trust's local partner organisations, for a presentation on the community development work they undertake in Tanzania and a spot of shopping in their charity shop, while the remainder of our time has been spent getting our hands dirty on the home-building worksites. While at the offices of TAWREF, we heard more about the two families for whom we are building new homes. All of the team have spent time working on…