Renovations and Family Planning

"This blog was originally written for and posted at "www.ycicanada.wordpress.com"

As a sit in my dark room, the electricity out again, I’m trying to make a plan for my remaining 5 weeks in Zanzibar.  It seems crazy that I have so little time left of my 7 month internship with YCI and UMATI.  To be honest, a part of me feels as though I’m just getting started.  At a time when I should be wrapping things up I’m nose deep with work to do.  I can’t help but wonder; where exactly did the time go? 

 

Part of my role with UMATI has been helping them build and develop their capacity as an organization, doing so in a way that will allow them to provide comprehensive services to the community and its youth. After a lot of hard work and determination, I’m thrilled to say that in the upcoming weeks construction will begin to renovate the UMATI clinic here in Zanzibar.  Needless to say, I’m beyond excited about this progress as it’s something I never expected to materialize before my time here in Zanzibar ended.  So what does this mean for UMATI?  Well, with a new improved and fully stocked clinic UMATI will finally have the capacity to run a sexual health clinic and reach those in need.  They will be able to counsel women on family planning methods and provide them with a number of options.  The renovations will also include lab materials which are needed to test for the numerous STI’s that are prevalent within the population.  The establishment of this clinic means that women, men and most importantly youth, will be able to access confidential and comprehensive sexual and reproductive health services.   And while these services have always been available at the local hospitals, they have never fully been utilized by a large proportion of the population because of a lack of confidentiality and user friendliness.  The new UMATI clinic will fill this gap and provide a safe place for youth to go, obtain information, access materials and services and to do so without the fear of being recognized by community members and stigmatized as a result.

Unfortunately, I will likely be finished my time here in Zanzibar by the time the clinic is ready and up and running.  Despite this, I know that the staff and volunteers at UMATI will do a wonderful job running it because they are passionate about the work they do.  Zanzibar isn’t the only place where changes are happening for UMATI.  At the beginning of August I was invited to go and visit the newly constructed UMATI office in Morogoro.  As a result of this trip, I know the potential UMATI as a nationwide organization has.  I’m excited to see how the branch in Zanzibar will continue to grow and I’m confident that someday they too will follow in the footsteps of other UMATI branches, like Morogoro, to expand and establish services such as Cervical Cancer screening and post-abortion care (PAC). 

New Clinical Room in Morogoro

With my few remaining weeks I’ll be spending a large portion of time focusing on writing and submitting several grant proposals.  As part of this task I spent a few days earlier in the week at a USAID bidder’s conference in Dar es Salaam.  This conference was attended by over 200 local NGO’s and I was honoured to have been asked to attend as a representative of UMATI.  The conference was in preparation for a call for concept papers from locally based and run NGO’s who are doing work on girl’s empowerment, sexual and reproductive health, and family planning.  The event was not only a great networking opportunity but also a fantastic learning experience for me as this will be the first concept paper I will write for a large international donor. In addition to a lot of proposal writing, next weekend I will be facilitating a community outreach event to educate young girls about S&R health and family planning. This community event will also help to increase awareness of UMATI which will be extremely important in order to ensure that the new clinic is well known and utilized.     

After 7 months in Zanzibar it will undoubtedly be hard to say goodbye.  I have formed amazing relationships with my coworkers, made some incredible new friends, reached and exceeded many goals, and discovered new things about myself and where I hope my life will lead me next.  And while at times I’ve struggled, doubted myself, and felt like I wasn’t reaching my full potential, I have a feeling that when I sit down to write my final report I will be able to confidently check off many boxes on the long list of goals I set out to accomplish at the beginning of this internship.  It just goes to show, persistence and patience really do go a long way.    

~Sabrina    

Photos from July

Here are a few of my favorite pictures from the month of July.  Enjoy!

Red Colobus Monkeys in Jozani Forest

Cheryl and I with a VERY old Tortoise

Low Tide at Jambiani

Norah

Pretty Architecture

Me on Prison Island

View from Prison Island

Lots of Garbage

New Friends

Innovation at Its Best

Children here are extremely creative and although they don’t have a room full of toys, video games or playgrounds, they never seem to run out of fun things to do or occupy themselves with. The simplest things here are made into toys.  I often see little ones running around with toy trucks they’ve made from plastic bottles or cardboard, using water bottle caps as the wheels.  Recently at one of the event the volunteers were running I had some fun with a group of local boys who had creatively turned a tree and a large branch into a teeter-totter, and found a creative way to have fun by using nothing but their hands and feet.  Take a look at the pictures below!             

Check back soon.  I'll post some photos from August soon.  Including pictures from my trip to South Africa and Namibia!

Sexual Health Education through Song, Dance and Theatre

"This blog was originally written for and posted at www.ycicanada.wordpress.com"

Over the past two months I’ve been fortunate enough to attend several community events and education sessions through UMATI’s current project “Daraja”.   Daraja is funded through Family Health Intentional (FHI) and is long running UMATI project which aims to provide sexual and reproductive health (SRH) education (including education surrounding HIV/AIDS, STI’s, and youth pregnancy) to youth and parents.  A large focus of the project is encouraging youth- parent communication as a means to increase awareness surrounding SRH issues and to reduce to the likelihood of risky sexual behaviour among youth.  These events are typically held outside of urban stone town in relatively rural communities.  Every event I’ve attended has had upwards of 300 participants of all ages, both male and female.  It’s amazing to me how engaged the audience becomes and I often find myself forgetting that I’m in a majority Muslim context.   The openness of discussing sensitive matters such as prostitution, sex, and HIV is inspiring.  Education is such a large determinant in prevention, and to see communities not only participating but encouraging open communication makes me all warm and fuzzy inside (I can’t help it, it’s the public health advocate inside me!).  I also can’t help but wonder how welcoming Canadian communities would be to such blunt and open education.

Daraja Project Banner

Students at a Community Session

The events typically last for about 2 hours and consist of a dance competition (usually between kids from the crowd), a drama presentation, and then a question and answer section.   In addition to these activities Voluntary Counselling and Testing (VCT) services are offer for free to anyone in the audience would like to be tested for HIV/AIDS.    I’d have to say that I most enjoy watching the kids dance; they get so excited as soon as the music starts and somehow manage to move their bodies in ways I can’t even imagine moving mine.  Once the selected few have had their chance to show off their best moves the audience votes for the best dancer and the lucky individual gets a prize.  To finish off the event two teams are picked from the crowd to participate in a tug-a-war contest, this usually leads to the crowd breaking into fits of laughter.  

Tug-of-War

UMATI Drama Presentation on Drug Use

Aside for my exciting work with the Daraja project I’m going to have a very busy schedule for the next month.  I’ll be coordinating UMATI’s involvement with a community health fair which will take place over 5 days at the end of July.  UMATI’s role here will be to provide education on sexual and reproductive health to those in the community as well as hosting several drama skits scheduled throughout the fair.  The fair is in collaboration with several other NGO’s and health organizations throughout the island it has been a great opportunity for me to network and work alongside some brilliant minds doing inspiring public health work in Zanzibar.  July will also have me spending a lot of time writing proposals.  Two major grant applications are due at the end of the month and I will be submitting them on UMATI’s behalf in hopes of acquiring funds to implement a SRH project for commercial sex workers (CSW) and hopefully, men who have sex with men (MSM).  Both of these populations are at extremely high risk of contracting HIV and other STI’s.  This funding would go a long way in increasing education and promoting safer sexual practices within these communities.  

        

Life here in Zanzibar isn’t all work.  The month of June turned out to be quite a social month for me and Lisa (the IYIP intern working here with ZANGOC).   Between the annual Zanzibar International Film Festival (ZIFF), visitors, trips to Dar es Salaam, the YCI volunteers arriving, and birthday celebrations, there really hasn’t been much down time.  The highlight of my social calendar thus far has probably been a party that I attending for my co-worker, Halima’s, 2 young daughters.  Now, birthday celebrations are somewhat of a new Tanzanian custom to me.  In mainland Tanzania they weren’t typically celebrated (at least not from my experience) so I was rather intrigued by what the evening was going to entail.  Especially as there was about 2 weeks of planning and preparation involved.   Needless to say, the event was epic.  The 6 hour party hosted upwards of 100 people (in a relatively small space) and involved all kinds of dancing, food, presents and even several outfit changes for the birthday girls.  There was a gift giving ceremony where each guest approached the girls sitting on an elaborate pedestal to wish them happy birthday, take a bite of cake and then hand over their gift to be added to the rapidly growing pile of goodies.  Everyone had a fantastic time (I even danced, which does not happen often!) and the birthday girls were exhausted by the end of it all.  It was a truly amazing experience and I’m so thankful to be welcomed into such a wonderful community here in Zanzibar.

Birthday Girls

Me, Rawha (UMATI Co-worker) and the Birthday Girls

Adorable

Cutting the Cake

Well, that’s all for now.  Kwa heri kwa sasa (goodbye for now)!

~Sabrina xoxo

Ps. Meghan - I know you're reading this and because you're shit at writing back to emails I thought I'd congratulate you on here.  I'm soooo thrilled for you!!     

Pictures

As I've been MIA for quite some time now I thought I'd post a few of my favourite pictures from the last two months.  Things here have been going great since my last post and I can't believe I'm nearly at the half way point of my internship.  I'll be posting a more detailed update within the next few days.  Enjoy!  

World Blood Donor Day Parade

Henna

Rainy Days

The Beautiful Mountains in Morogoro



Storm Rolling In

Dinner with Friends (Picture courtesy of Shannon's WHE blog)

Harbour in Stone Town

Lots of Updates

So, it’s been a while since my last blog post and it’s crazy that I’m writing this at the end of my 7^th week in Zanzibar.  Sometimes it feels like I`ve been here ages, and other times it feels like we arrived on the ferry just yesterday.  It`s funny how quickly a place can become home.   I often forget that I`m living in a tropical paradise, although I now completely understand the concept of `island fever`.  There are definitely a lot of advantages and disadvantages to living in such a beautiful place and there`s a strange feeling that comes with living on an island, almost like you`re not completely grounded.  The island is so small that there are constantly airplanes coming and going, which you can hear and see from pretty much anywhere surrounding Stone Town.  It`s strange to think of how this is such a common and unnoticed part of the environment here, especially when you consider that the majority of people living in Zanzibar will likely never experience travelling by air.     

Waiting out the rain

On the shore in Stone Town

About a month ago Lisa and I moved into our new apartment, which I must say is so much more than I ever expected to have here.  We have 3 large bedrooms, a huge living room, dining room, kitchen, hot water, air conditioning, and believe it or not... a washing machine.  I`m sure my clothes are eternally grateful that they will not have to endure 8 months of hand washing!  Some of them may even make it back to Canada in somewhat the same state as when they left.      

Going on an adventure

The beach about 30mins walk from our apartment

My work with Umati has been moving at a relatively slow pace.  I`ve essentially spent the first month of work getting to know the staff members and developing a clear understanding of the goals and objectives for the Zanzibar location.  UMATI works throughout the country and as a national organization is very well established.  Countrywide they have many locations that are fully functional with numerous projects and services on the go.  Unfortunately, the Zanzibar location is relatively new and still needs some time to develop greater capacity.  As of right now they are extremely limited in the services they can provide to the community, mainly due to a general lack of funding. This has made my role here somewhat difficult to solidify.             

The view from outside of my office

Over the Easter holidays (we got the Friday, Monday and Tuesday off) I travelled to Dar es Salaam to escape island fever, do some much needed shopping for the apartment, and to visit with some friends.  Until this trip I have to admit that my desire to spend any time is Dar has been pretty much non-existent.  Dar, like many large African cities, is extremely busy, dirty, and jam packed with traffic.  All of which creates a less than desirable picture for a weekend getaway.  However, I must admit that I’ve warmed up to Dar after this little trip.  This is probably because I had the opportunity to wonder around the city and came across some fantastic places to shop and eat.  I have a feeling that Lisa and I may be ‘escaping’ to Dar on a regular basis once our resident’s permits come through and travelling back and forth is much more affordable!   
   

Pretty Sunset

During my trip to Dar I also had the opportunity to meet up with a fantastic organization, Tuwapende Watoto (TW).  This Swiss run organization is based just outside of the city and operates as an orphanage and school.  I spent 3 days in total at TW and had a great time getting to know the children, staff and some of the board members from Switzerland.  The compound is beautiful and the children are extremely well loved, educated and cared for.  It was inspirational to see and I`m already looking forward to my next visit.

The Beautiful Vanessa

Tuwapende Watoto

Going for a Drive

Well, I suppose that’s all for now.  Jamie, another YCI IYIP intern, is currently visiting us in Zanzibar so we’re headed to the beach this weekend for some sun and relaxation.  I’ve yet to be up north to the beaches so I’m really looking forward to it.  I’m sure I’ll have all kinds of pictures and stories to share when we get back.

~Sabrina

xoxo  

Introduction

Well, I’m officially back in the world of blogging!   I’ve once again returned to Tanzania, only this time to Zanzibar, for a 7 month internship (March 21^st-October 21^st, 2011) through the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), Youth Challenge International (YCI), and Family Planning Tanzania (UMATI).  Although my placement is through all three of these organizations (take a look at the links of the right hand side if you’d like to learn a little more about each of them), while on the ground in Zanzibar I’ll be working directly with UMATI, their field staff and ongoing projects.

Who/What is UMATI?

UMATI is a non-profit NGO that provides sexual and reproductive health (SRH) education, services, and resources in 18 locations throughout Tanzania.  UMATI offers a large variety of services including:

• Basic primary education for school dropouts due to pregnancy (2 sites)
• Vocational training programme in tailoring and Hotel Management (2 sites)
• SRH clinics (7 Sites)
• Library Services
• Income Generating Activities (IGAs)
• Life Planning Skills education
• Training in SRH
• Information centres for SRH related issues
• Drama, puppetry and recreational services

My Role

During my internship I will be working as a Health Promotion Officer with UMATI in Zanzibar and will spend the majority of my time on sexual and reproductive health projects focused towards at risk youth populations including commercial sex workers (CSW), men who have sex with men (MSM), and intravenous drug users (IDU).  Within each of these areas I’ll be assisting UMATI in developing new projects, researching and identifying project needs and gaps, proposal writing, and monitoring and evaluation of current projects and programs.   

I’m looking forward to the 7 months ahead of me.  I know they will be filled with challenges, excitement, frustrations, wonderful experiences, professional development, great friends, successes and failures.  I will try to update my blog regularly, although having kept a blog while in Tanzania before I know that it can be extremely time consuming and rather frustrating.  Simply uploading a photo, which takes seconds at home, can take hours here.  Be patient and stay tuned!

Sabrina xoxo