SKIP HYMS - Tanzania

SKIP HYMS (Hull York Medical School) work in the town of Kibaha, west of Dar es Salaam, in Tanzania with a local NGO called MYODA (Mkuza Youth Development Association). We aim to improve awareness of children’s disability, increase local knowledge of HIV/AIDS and improve access to healthcare and education to all children in the area.

The interventions we are involved in to achieve this are:

• Running community days to increase the knowledge and acceptance of disability in the community.
• HIV/AIDS awareness seminars
• Speaking at local high schools about disability and health promotio
• Working with disadvantaged young children in MYODA's nursery.

History

Established in 2007, SKIP HYMS is still a very young branch of SKIP. We completed a needs assessment trip to Tanzania in the summer of 2008 to meet various potential partner organisations and identify an area or community that could most benefit from what SKIP has to offer. Following a lengthy discussion and evaluation in October 2008 it was decided that our project partner will be MYODA.

MYODA are a small grass roots NGO (Non-governmental organisation) based in Kibaha who work towards sustainable youth development and eradicating poverty whilst fighting against the medical and social problems of HIV/AIDS. Obedy Kuguru developed MYODA in 2004; he wished to help meet the needs that he saw in the children and youth in Kibaha. We returned to Kibaha in the summer of 2009 in order to further research the needs of the community, to decide what interventions we could hope to develop which would benefit the local people and to further strengthen our ties with MYODA. The information we gathered on this trip gave us an idea of the number of children living with disabilities in the area, what they and their families felt they needed most and the ways in which we could help with the curriculum at the nursery.

What will our project do?

In the summer of 2010 we sent out our first official volunteers who were split into two waves, each spending two weeks on project. In the summer of 2011 we sent out a second group of volunteers consisting of 17 volunteers in 3 waves, again for 2 weeks each.

Whilst in Tanzania they were involved in several aspects of the project:

1. The Nursery:

• Set up by MYODA for children whose families could otherwise not afford to send them to nursery school. Attendance at nursery is essential as otherwise children are not able to enter primary education.
• Helping to teach the curriculum; there are currently around 70 children aged 3-7yrs and one teacher! Volunteers taught mainly English lessons – colours, animals, simple greetings, human body, numbers, shapes etc. An early grasp of the language is essential, as lessons in higher education will often only be taught in English.
• Thinking up as many fun extra-curricular activities as possible! These included sports, games and a repertoire of songs: head-shoulder-knees-and-toes and ‘I can sing a rainbow’ were particular favourites.

2. Disability Awareness Days:

• Opportunities to increase the communities’ awareness of disability, by providing informative talks and group discussions.
• Help forge a support network within the community, something that many of the families we spoke to felt would be helpful.
• Played games with the disabled children and their families, as well as other children in the community. This was with the aim to promote integration as many parents said they and their children felt alienated from their community.

3. HIV/AIDS awareness seminars:

• In conjunction with MYODA two seminars were run with the aim of increasing local knowledge.

• We ran several interactive health promotion sessions at a local secondary school.
• Subjects included: malaria, disability awareness and HIV.

5. Internet Café:

• We aim to fund the set-up of a small internet café in association with MYODA in Kibaha. We have now installed 3 working computers and are securing an internet connection.
• We are planning to provide photocopying and printing facilities soon.
• The profits will help make our projects with MYODA sustainable, meaning that they will eventually be able to thrive without needing support from SKIP.
• Research was carried out with MYODA in Kibaha via surveys of the local community to assess the viability of this intervention.

MYODA wish to provide more support for children with physical and learning disabilities whom the community regards as useless and worthless, looking upon them as the ‘cursed ones’. We aim to develop our project to help support in this area and are currently establishing links with a local school who have an inclusive policy and are eager to collaborate with us. We continue to research the barriers in the region to disabled children accessing education and are constantly developing our interventions accordingly.

The ultimate aim of our project is sustainability and for SKIP not to be needed. Whilst our interventions at the moment are still relatively small, as we develop as a branch we hope to make an impact which is useful to and wanted by the community as well as one which will last and continue to develop long after we have left.

What are our goals?

Our main goals for this year are to:

1. Fundraise to support SKIP and MYODA’s project in Tanzania.
2. To improve the image of SKIP in our medical school and community to help get SKIP better well known and get more people involved in this amazing charity.
3. Send a third group of volunteers out to Tanzania this coming summer to help run and improve our interventions there and to strengthen our ties with MYODA and the Kibaha community
4. Further research and development of our HIV awareness and disability awareness days which, at present, seem to be one of our most successful interventions.
5. Plan future interventions in conjunction with MYODA that tackle disability in the community, poverty, youth development and HIV/AIDS as well as continuing to develop our current ones

How do we raise money?

So far this year we have had a number of fundraising events, including cake sales, raffles, bag packing as well as private donations. We are planning some large events such as SKIP SOUNDCLASH music event and an African Party to fundraise and to spread the word of SKIP to our area.

A volunteers experience

By Anna Watson, HYMS 2nd year student, volunteer on project summer 2011

Contact us

For more information about SKIP HYMS or our project please contact us at skiphyms@googlemail.com.