TEACHING PROJECT HOURS
AVG TEMP: 24°C
AVG SEA TEMP: 26°C
LANGUAGE LESSON: KISWAHILI ‘Nina furaha sana” translates as “I am very happy”.
MARINE PROJECT HOURS
WHAT’S NEW ON THE GROUND? There have been many goodbyes and welcomes this quarter: • • • •
In July, we said goodbye to our Marine Community Coordinator Amini, and welcomed Abdul and Mohammed who live locally on the island. In July, we also welcomed Claudy from the Netherlands, who is now our Teaching Project Coordinator. In September, we said goodbye to Program Manager Harry and welcomed Lisa into her new position! We said hello to Lauryn from Australia, replacing Lisa as Marine Project Coordinator.
“The project does make a huge impact locally and you really feel that you are part of something important.” Roger, Sweden, Teaching Project
“Absolutely fell in love here. Fell in love with my classes, the community, African Impact and Zanzibar.” Stephanie, Canada, Teaching Project
“I had the opportunity here to fulfill one of my dreams, work with and for the dolphins. And the best reward, a peaceful swim with twenty friendly dolphins and an amazing whale show!!” Elsa, Switzerland, Marine Project
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This quarter, we carried out 43 dolphin tourist monitoring sessions, where we recorded a total of 1,334 tourists. This number is continually growing and will have a huge effect on dolphin behavior.
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2 new marine information wallboards have been created in Kizimkazi (our local village) to educate tourists and the community. This includes information about protecting the environment, our coral reefs and how to protect the dolphin population by choosing ethical dolphin tours.
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Our 35 Creative Conservation Club students had 13 lessons in their latest module, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.
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27 students attended a field trip to a turtle sanctuary and recycling project, learning how they can protect marine mammals through beach clean ups and reusing plastics.
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A new ‘Graduate Club’ was established for graduate Conservation Club students. They completed their first project – Eco-bricking Extravangza. 25 students made 200 eco-bricks over 8 weeks, and collected over 20 bags of rubbish from the community.
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We were lucky enough to collect data on the migrating humpback whales from July to August, where we had at least 8 sightings.
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Volunteers took part in 12 ethical dolphin swims with African Impact’s ethically-trained boat drivers.
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An incredibly generous volunteer Ann Marie donated 6 easels to our school to use as white board holders. Our school is an African Impact-built community center where we offer free education classes to the local community. The easels have been so valuable, making the delivery of our English lessons much easier.
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At our community school, volunteers painted the new toilet block inside and out. The design makes the land so much brighter, so thank you to volunteer Chrissie for the design! (See photo on the left!)
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We also spent time delivering bags of donations to a number of families, including clothes, toothbrushes, toys, blankets and shoes.
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We introduced new curriculums for our ‘Teach the Teacher’ and women’s group programs. The teachers and ladies were taught about topics they wanted to learn more about, including environmental issues, conservation, health and the body.
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In our mission to reduce road deaths in the area, our Road Safety Program was successfully delivered and positively received by six schools twice throughout the quarter! A Road Safety week was also delivered across all projects (Kanga Ladies, Adult Classes and Community Project), to ensure the whole community is engaged in the goal.
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A Dental Hygiene workshop was delivered to Kidenga Primary School, where 120 students were taught how to brush their teeth in 1 morning!
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Thanks to an incredibly generous donation from a volunteer, over 350 toothbrushes were also donated to the school.
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We introduced English tuition and foreign languages classes after English classes at our community school. These have been incredibly well received by all of our students and volunteers, who love the varied teaching style.
There are so many places to explore in Zanzibar, but a firm favorite (and a very special trip) is to visit our friends at Zala Park. Zala Park is a sustainable tourism initiative run by a community leader Mohammed. Here, you can kayak through the magical mangroves, experience life in the forest via a village and nature tour, and stay in an incredible eco-lodge built in the mangroves themselves. The money given to the park helps fund a local nursery school, so we couldn’t think of a better place to spend a weekend!
We’ve had a lot of fun raising money on the ground this quarter! From pampering and movie nights, to quiz nights and weekend trips, volunteers have had an amazing time whilst contributing to our focal projects. A favorite fundraiser has been Maasai jumping shows (something the Maasai tribe are famous for world-wide), where our English language students come together on the beach to perform for volunteers! Total money raised on ground this quarter: $824
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