Marine Project Hours
Teaching Project Hours
AVG TEMP:
WHAT’S NEW ON THE GROUND?
LANGUAGE LESSON: 1.
“to swim”
LAND: 28 C SEA: 29 C
“Kuongelea” in Kiswahili
2. 3.
We said goodbye to our amazing Teaching Project Manager Tess who returned to Australia to finish her degree in Social Work. Tess has left a huge hole in our hearts, but we are so grateful for her incredible work and dedication over her 1.5 years here. We welcomed our AIF intern Aditi from the US who will be with us for 6 months. We opened our marine project house in Kizimkazi as accommodation for volunteers for 2 months over the summer – volunteers absolutely loved living in Kizimkazi and enjoyed the peaceful community life, sunsets and whale watching!
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With the highest number of volunteers we have had so far this year, we were able to collect even more valuable data on how tourism activities affect dolphin behavior. A total of 32 volunteers conducted 53 dolphin monitoring sessions. They recorded 507 tourist boats, 498 dolphins and a whopping 1745 tourists interacting with the dolphins. This quarter was peak tourist season, resulting in many boats out on the water at once. If these unethical practices continue, we could see this dolphin population leave the bay for other waters
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The high number of tourists identified this season stresses the need for continued ethical boat driver training workshops and marine conservation education in the area to ensure a sustainable environment for the community and dolphins
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We conducted an ethical boat training workshop for 3 boat drivers in Kizimkazi. We taught 5 different modules: environmental education, better business practices, customer service, ethical dolphin swim and a practical exam on the water
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All trained boat drivers passed their practical test and graduated! Now we have a total of 16 trained drivers!
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We took a field trip to the Practical Permaculture Institute with 27 conservation club students from Kizimkazi Dimbani School to conclude our year-long curriculum with them. The students learned about water conservation and reuse, as well as how to make their own soil with compost and organic materials
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The students always love the field trips because it gives them a real-world example of how they can apply the skills they just learned!
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We created connections with a hotel in our neighboring village of Kizimkazi Mkunguni and provided 2 more free marine information walls. We also have another located at the main harbor
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These wallboards are so important in giving tourists and communities sought-after advice about ethical dolphin tours, eco-friendly snorkeling and information about marine life
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Peak season perks – expanding to more nurseries! Each year during July and August we expand our nursery program to 2 more schools, Kibigija and Kauthar. With such high volunteer numbers we were able to teach 280 students each day across all 6 nurseries in Jambiani for 3 months! The teachers and students love us expanding our classes to their schools, and we love to teach them and see them grow Introducing Health and Sports Week: For the first time, we taught the nursery children about the importance of healthy eating and exercising. This workshop week has been developed in cooperation with the nursery teachers
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Throughout the week we practiced different forms of exercising with them; a relay race, football and throwing and catching a ball. At the end of the week we invited all six schools to take part in a Sports Day!
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Together with over 300 children and all of their teachers, they competed in different sports and raced against each other. It was an incredible morning and such a highlight for the 19 volunteers on board!
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All students who had attended enough classes throughout their 15week semester sat their final exams at the start of September. 33 students received marks high enough to go up a group and one student graduated!
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After Adult English lessons at our Community Center, we offer extra English classes for all students who are interested. In the last couple of months this became so popular! Around 25 students stayed every day to ask questions relating to the previous lessons or wanting to practice writing or speaking.
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Foreign languages were also flying, with 11 weeks of Italian being taught by 22 volunteers, 6 weeks of French with 8 volunteers and 7 weeks of German with 7 volunteers!
“Such an amazing project that I feel blessed to have been a part of. I don't think I could have asked for a better experience, I've felt so welcomed into the community and have never met friendlier and funnier people with such character than the locals in Jambiani, I will most definitely miss it. An unforgettable experience.” Lucy, UK
“I had an incredible experience, Sarah was the best project manager and the highlight of my trip was ethically swimming with dolphins. One of the best decisions I have made was coming to this project.” Hemali, Kenya
This year’s World Clean Up Day (15 September) was a huge success across Zanzibar, and saw the African Impact team lead a big beach and village clean in Jambiani. Over 90 tourists, hotel staff and community members joined us to collect: 87 bags of recyclables and rubbish, weighing 368KG, covering only 2.5km.
THE TEAM IN ZANZIBAR