When five students from the British International School of Boston traveled to Tanzania to embark on two weeks of service learning, they knew they were going to help develop a sustainable garden at a Maasai village school.
A wider hope though, was how that work would inspire the entire village.
When five students from the British International School of Boston traveled to Tanzania to embark on two weeks of service learning, they knew they were going to help develop a sustainable garden at a Maasai village school.
A wider hope though, was how that work would inspire the entire village.
The students- Victoria, Iwan, Paula, Teal and Sofia- worked for one week in the Maasai village, along with two BISB teachers, Mrs. Williams and Mrs. Borking, to help local activists develop the sustainable garden.
The garden, located at a village school, was built in hopes of providing fresh fruits and vegetables to the local students, and included a bio gas system that helped turn farm waste into cooking fuel for the school.
The project also hoped to inspire others like it, and just a few months later, it's clear that all of these goals are being met. The students involved recently received an update from the project coordinator in Tanzania, who shared lots of good news on the success of the project.
The garden is being used to trial a wide variety of plants, according to the update, and the bio gas system is working great to provide hot water for cooking vegetables.
Perhaps the greatest impact of the project, however, has been its power to inspire those in the village. Two people from the village in which the BISB students worked, and one from a neighboring village, will soon be attending a permaculture course so they can learn the techniques needed to push the sustainable garden forward.
For the students involved, this news was very happily received. Read on for some thoughts from Victoria on how it feels to have inspired the village:
One of the goals we hoped to achieve through the garden we developed was: "to motivate people to preserve our project and inspire them to learn about the practices of permaculture." Knowing now that something we put great effort into sparked initiative means so much to me.
The garden not only provides food to the children of the school and gas to cook through the biodigester, but by influencing three people I know that they, and others, will keep our project alive, bringing the knowledge they obtained back to the community and helping them strive.
Just because I'm back in Boston doesn't mean the project is over. The garden still provides food and the biodigester still provides gas. But most importantly people are still being inspired. This is such a relief to me because I know the garden wasn't a wasted effort that deteriorated after we left. On that note, thank you to everyone who helped in this project. I cant wait to see what the group next year will achieve. I hope it leaves them with the same satisfying, amazing feelings I was left with.
