JBFC Online | Blog

Communication At Last!

2011-07-11T13:46:00.001+03:00

Very exciting news- I am writing this blog and posting it from the comfort of our very own campus all the way out here in Kitongo! Thanks to the generosity of the Bronxville Rotary Club in New York, we were able to purchase a satellite internet service a couple weeks ago on a trial basis, and everything seems to be working great. There are obviously little hiccups now and then (we are in the African bush after all), but overall, we are extremely happy with the service and it will definitely enable Kayci and I to stay in touch on a more regular basis with all of you.

Once again, the Rotary Club has come through in enabling us to build our organization’s infrastructure here in Tanzania so that we can ultimately serve more and more children across Tanzania. For those of you who don't know, the Rotary Club of Will Rogers in Tulsa, OK and Rotary International were the driving force behind our current water system on campus and are the reason we have permanent running water and great water pressure!

We hope that you all will stay tuned on a more regular basis so that we can keep you up to date on the day-to-day happenings here at JBFC in Tanzania!

Progressed as Promised- Kitongo 2011

2011-06-11T22:16:00.000+03:00

Several friends of Margaret Paul’s, my aunt, approached me a few months ago about donating to JBFC for her 50^th birthday. We talked, behind Margaret’s back of course, about the various projects Margaret would appreciate on campus, and they started sending in donations. Thanks to their generosity, and my aunt getting old, we are now in the process of building a laundry area, tiling all of our dorms, and building a playground at the school.

All of these projects are helping keep in line with the theme for this year: re-organizing. We have been taking a step back, looking at what needs to be done, and maintaining what we have already before we plan to take the next step forward in June or July- our secondary school. It has been an incredibly busy time, getting all of these smaller projects completed, but our girls have been extremely excited, and we think we are going to have the coolest playground in all of East Africa- we are building traditional-looking huts on stilts, connected by swinging bridges, with a tricycle race-track, teter-toters, swings, and all of the other playground necessities.

We send a special thanks to all of Marg’s friends who made these projects a reality, and we would also like to share a short video sent to Margaret on her birthday to tell her about these projects. We hope you enjoy:

Donkey, Yee Haw!

2011-06-04T22:00:00.000+03:00

Well, I’m finally feeling like half a cowboy, because we now have half horses on campus thanks to the Tulsa fundraiser in mid-April. And, by half-horses, I do mean DONKEYS. We went on a bit of a “donkey hunt” towards the middle of last week, and after much searching, found 2 families, each with 2 donkeys, who were willing to sell. The village was about 2 hours away from the JBFC campus, so we had to rent a truck, trick the donkeys into the bed, and start the treck back to campus, but everything went extremely smoothly, and now, Santa, Jack, Ethel, and Winnie are grazing happily around campus, taking their dust bathes and “eh-awing” as they see fit (even at 2AM). Training has begun for them to learn to plow and pull carts, as to reduce the great expense we use to do both of these things on campus.

I bring this new addition up because it speaks to the progress we are experiencing on our farm. Since restructuring the staffing and creating new goals, all of our livestock has been extremely prolific, we have been “passing” a great number of the young birthed on campus, and our livestock and farm are starting to turn into a real business. We are even registered for the state fair at the beginning of August in hopes of advertising this business as well as bringing home the gold for biggest hog and turkey-maybe even the prize for loudest donkey!

Furthermore, thanks to the Tulsa fundraiser, we have been able to start a new laying hen business, and have purchased 600 new laying hens in hopes of being able to supply the surrounding area as well as our campus with quality eggs. The first coop has been constructed already, and the second one’s construction is well under way. All of this progress just means we are moving closer and closer to our goal of self-sustainability.

6th Grade School Outdoors

2011-05-28T19:44:00.003+03:00

This past weekend, we took our 6^th grade on a 2-day camping trip in the Serengeti to learn about the plains, animals, and everything else you need to know about the world-renowned Serenget National Park. They had approached us about this idea about two months back, and Kayci and I thought that it would be a great idea to get our kids out of the classroom and learn, hands-on. Plus, it would have the added bonus of bonding and character building, as any good camping trip does!

That is exactly what happed at the first annual 6^th Grade School Out of The Doors (the change in name is because of the slight misunderstanding of our accents). We left at 6AM last Saturday, headed to the Serengeti, and entered the park around 7:30. Our first stop was the swinging bridge above the huge Nile Crocodiles (there were 3 people too scared to cross). We had breakfast and ventured to the middle of the park, where, after lunch and a short stop at the gas station, we got word there was a leopard in a tree right by the road. So, we rushed from the visitor center where we were eating and learning about the history of the Serengeti, and headed to the leopard tree. We were extremely lucky, and caught the leopard in the tree, laying right next to his dinner, Mr. Antelope. It was an incredible sight, and yet another educational experience for our students.

When we arrived at the campsite, we had a short lesson on tent building and spent about half-an-hour writing reflections on the day and answering a worksheet full of questions (when the students proposed this “educational experience” I don’t think they thought there would be any education involved). We started dinner, the campfire, and talked about what we had seen, what we learned, and played a variety of games. In our conversations, we learned that only 6 of the 29 students had ever been to the Serengeti, and only our JBFC girls had ever been camping!

Overall, it was an extremely successful trip (minus the two flat tires), and our students walked away having a greater understanding of the Serengeti, their nation, and what wildlife is. As we continue to better our school, giving our students a more hands-on curriculum, we hope to be able to provide more and more experiences just like the School Out Of The Doors.

2011-05-02T09:32:00.002+03:00

Well, we are finally back in Tanzania after a very short, whirlwind tour in the States. It was a great time, but I know there were many more of you we wished to see, and didn't have time. I will write more about Boniface's impressions and feedback from the trip as a follow up to the previous post, but I wanted to make sure that I got this video that Ashli and Jonathon put together. This is our new promotional video, and I encourage you to share it with anyone and everyone you can to get the word out of what we are doing. This footage was taken while they were working on the documentary, Little by Little this past February and March. Hope you enjoy...

Eyes Wide Open

2011-04-02T22:30:00.002+03:00

As many of you know, we were fortunate enough to have a US visa granted to our principal, Boniface, and we are now in the middle of our American safari. It has only been 5 days since we landed in the US, but I can tell that this is going to be a life changing, eye opening 3 weeks, in so many more ways than I could have imagined. Of course, there is the culture shock for Boniface; the freezing weather, the huge highways, the nice houses, and commodoties at our fingertips, but there is so much learning taking place that I know Boniface, and therefore the Joseph and Mary Primary School will never be the same.

Even though we have only visited one school (Bronxville Public School in New York), I can tell that Boniface has an entirely new appreciation for what it means to be an educator. He said to me that after almost 40 years in education, his eyes are finally open to what education can be, and he is excited to get back to work with a new fervor and drive. He is amazed by the teachers drive, the way that a class is controlled without the use of harsh language or corporal punishment, and how much FUN learning can be for a student when a teacher is excited about the subject. Of course, these are all things that we have discussed in our countless staff development days over the past year, but I am hopeful that Boniface having his eyes opened here will mean a new commitment by our entire staff to changing the education system in Tanzania by being an example at the Joseph and Mary Primary School. There are still so many more schools to tour, and so much more to see, but if we continue in this direction, I think this trip could possibly change what it means to be a teacher and student at JBFC!

Our Farm and Livestock

2011-03-14T12:45:00.003+03:00

Every business, organization, or even individual reaches a point in their lifespan where they need to step back, evaluate, and re-organize. At JBFC, we had reached that point in our livestock and agriculture department last year, and we felt it was time to make some significant changes.

I should probably diverge for a minute, however, and talk about this department and why it is so important to the JBFC model. The first reason is that we at JBFC are constantly working towards self-sustainability. We hope, once all of our income-generating projects reach maturity, we will be able to provide for all of our operating expense in-country, allowing us to focus more of our budget on expansion and helping more children. A large part of these self-sustaining plans are reliant on our agriculture and livestock programs. However, this department also plays a big hand in life education for our children. By having our girls and students involved in learning how these projects are run, we are setting them up with invaluable skills to succeed later in life. We are showing them, by example, how to lead a sustainable life.

The first thing we have done, is to evaluate the various pieces of our farm, and looked to see which were the most productive. For instance, turkeys, pigs, and ducks are much more productive and profitable than milk cows and local chickens. So, as we looked at the business side of the farm, we realized a need to put more effort into those areas. Secondly, having struggled with the accountability of our workers in this department for some time, we figured it best to divide all of our workers, and put each one of them in charge of a different piece of the farm, creating an easy way to keep workers accountable.

We have only been trying this new system for a month, but it seems to be working. We have already seen tremendous improvement in the cleanliness of our farm, the livestock has begun to fatten up, and the vegetable garden is incredibly organized and weed-free! We are hoping this new system will continue to show improvements in the coming months while we continue to evaluate the different aspects of the farm and livestock ares, so that JBFC-Kitongo can move even closer to our self-sustainability goal!

A Brief Update on the School

2011-03-01T12:41:00.002+03:00

First of all, I would like to apologize for the long silence. Slow to no internet is one of the many challenges of living in the Tanzanian bush!

Anyways, I would like to take a minute and discuss some of the major improvements at the school, following up on a previous blog about the challenges we are facing with the current education system. At the end of last year, we made some major changes in our teaching staff, bringing in some more qualified teachers with a greater understanding of English (since we are an English-Medium school). We were fortunately able to find these teachers due to the growing popularity of our school.

Thanks to these staff changes and continuing staff development, school is running much, much more smoothly this year. For two weeks before opening the school, we sat as a school staff, working to bring new concepts and techniques to the table, and discussed how these new ideas could be implemented in our school. We also agreed to rearrange our early years so that the students in our kindergarten, first, and second grades stay with the same teacher and aide for three years, creating consistency during incredibly important years of development. We have many new supplies for our classrooms, and we have recently had a math teacher from the States run a week-long seminar on math techniques and teaching styles. With all of this coming together, we are extremely hopeful for the year (and years) ahead. We have faith that our students will quickly rise to the top, and these systems we are using currently will be a model for many other schools.

And, just to mention, even though we ourselves viewed last year as one with many new challenges, we passed with flying colors by national standards. Our fourth grade had a 100% pass-mark on the national exams last fall, which put us on the radar on the national level for excellence in education.

I will write another post in the next few days about the progress being made with our documentary (the film crew is in Tanzania), but until then, I want to thank all of you for your continued support of JBFC. We would not be able to do what we are doing without you.

A Challenge with Education in Tanzania

2010-12-21T11:18:00.000+03:00

When we first opened the school a year ago, I thought we were in way over our heads. The behavior of the students definitely left something to be desired, but I was much more concerned about our teachers. The students, I knew, would eventually come around. Before we opened school, we had led a 2-week staff development to try to get everyone on the same page. We covered tons of topics, from individualizing lesson plans, to group work, to overall school structure. We all left excited and I was hopeful for the weeks ahead.

Hopefulness ended day one when I realized very little of what we had covered in staff development actually sank in. All of the teachers had reverted back to their ‘stand only at the board, the student is always wrong’ mentality, having not a care in the world about the learning that needed to take place. I felt a little stupid for being so hopeful, having fully known this is how education is viewed across the country.

We took the next several months taking the approach of working with each teacher individually, giving periodical evaluations which only had one, maybe two suggestions at a time. Slowly, the feel of the classroom and the school started to change, and to date, our teachers are much more eager to experiment with different methodologies. We still have a long ways to go, but we are extremely happy with the progress thus far.

I bring all of this up not to praise ourselves for the progress we’ve had, but to try to help paint a picture of one of the main challenges facing the entire Tanzanian education system- teacher education and training. Sure, there are not enough teachers in Tanzania in general, but I believe the greater question is “are the teachers we do have good teachers?’ I think so many people, especially ones in administrative positions like myself, focus on numbers and forget some of these greater qualitative questions. We could have a 1:1 teacher-student ratio across the country and still not raise the standard of education because the teachers are not adequately trained. Don’t misunderstand me either. I do not believe there are enough teachers currently in Tanzania. I am merely talking about our focus and where it should be as we look at the bigger picture and talk about scalability, both of JBFC and on a more macro level.

You may be asking yourself- what is the answer to this complex question? What needs to be done? And, I am not going to answer that yet, as this is a solution we are still trying to work out ourselves. It is a complex issue, dealing with systematically changing a long-standing behavior structure, and it must be worked with slowly, which is exactly what we are doing in our little corner of the world.

We are the champions!

2010-12-17T08:13:00.003+03:00

We are just back from a 5 day trip to Arusha, where we travelled to take home the gold from an international soccer tournament. We took 28 kids, with me, Rachel, and of course the coach, Ashley. The trip, I can say since we are back now, could not have gone smoother. For the first time in my African life, we did not have a car break down. Mind you, this is a little more than a minor miracle, seeing as we went through both the Serengeti and Ngorongoro National Parks.

The first night of our trip, we camped on the rim of the Ngorongoro crater. Manoj, our travel agent, let us use some of his tents, so we were set. We brought pasta and hot dogs for dinner, cooked over firewood, and watched the sun set over the crater. It was a picture perfect scene, albeit the girls thought they were going to die from the cold. It was good we only stayed one night, becuase the sniffles started the next morning, and we were out of there. We didn't want our players getting sick.

For the tournament, we stayed at an incredible boarding school, St. Jude's, which is a school devoted to alleviating poverty. They have incredible facilities, including hot water in the teachers' rooms and a grass field. They also had an incredible library which was inspiring for all of us.

The tournament started on Saturday, and we only played 2 games. One of the other teams we were slotted to play did not show up, so it was a fairly easy day. We had our challenging points in the game, including myself loosing it with the ref, but our girls were definitely the most fit and practiced team in the tournament. By the end of each game, our girls were ready to keep going, were the opponents were on their knees with exhaustion. We won both games 1-0, one game scored by Neema, and another by Tabu.

The final day, Sunday, we started, and again, the refs were favoring the other team. The team we were playing in the finals were the hosts of the entire tournament. However, after a little half-time talk with the refs and tournament officials at half-time (Ashley did the talking, while I stayed with the girls- my competitive streak came out), the playing field was a little more fair. However, our girls were so bitter after the first half that they came out with a fiery force. They played incredibly, knowing down anyone who came in their path, and we ended up winning the game 1-0, again, Neema's score leading us to victory.

After the game, there was lunch, some team building exercises with the other teams, and an awards ceremony. Our girls also took home 3 of the 4 personal awards awarded to players. Pili for best goalkeeper, Neema for best defender, and Tabu for best striker. We left the field pretty early, and headed back to St. Jude's where we rested, packed, and had dinner before an early bedtime.

Monday, we left Arusha around 4AM so as to make it back to Kitongo in one day, and we were all back on campus by 5PM. Again, no car or other issues on the road, just a long day of bumps! We weren't able to tell the people who stayed back much about the tournament, because they had been following us on the radio, and would constantly hear how the "JBFC Mwanza girls' team is fierce!" All in all, an incredible trip, and incredible confidence booster for all of our girls. It is amazing to see how the villagers keep coming up and congratulating the players, and how much pride there is in this girls' team- something extremely rare in this area. Now we are setting our sights on an international tournament with 60 teams from across Africa next August in Nairobi. We have lots to do before then, but we are hoping to be able to bring home the gold there, as well.

Finally, we would like to thank everyone who made our Arusha trip possible. Without your financial support, we would not have been able to make this happen, and all of us in the JBFC family are extremely grateful. Thank You!

Redefining our Labels

2010-12-02T07:19:00.002+03:00

I want to take a minute to describe something very important to me and I think something central to the JBFC model and what makes it so successful. I am going to start by talking about some of our issues with the word “orphanage” and “orphan”, primarily its usage to describe our girls. I think before I dive into this, however, I want to describe a conversation I had a while back with one of our girls, so as to paint a clearer picture. It started by me asking what her definition of the word orphan was, and what her feelings were associated with that word. Her definition were pretty much the same answer any one of us would give, but the “feeling behind the word” was incredibly touching, and helped me to see that we are doing a good job raising our girls. She expressed that the word orphan represents hopelessness and a life of poverty, something she herself does not associate with. Yes, they could have been thrown into that category if it wasn’t for JBFC, but because of this family (albeit non-traditional) had given them a second shot at life, they were filled with hope and had a life full of potential ahead of them. Therefore, even though they had unfortunate, and sometimes traumatic backgrounds, they are not orphans. They are simply children.

This brings me to the second point on the word “orphanage”, and how it is so often used to describe JBFC. Because of my background, and how JBFC started, it was often associated with traditional orphanages. Despite telling even close family members countless times about my views on the words and the inaccuracy of usage in describing JBFC with that word, it is relatable, and people understand and sympathize with the word. A traditional orphanage, in my opinion, is simply a place to care for and raise children. There are many wonderful organizations that do an incredible job raising and loving children as if they were their own (much like we do), but I have a firm belief that we cannot stop there, especially when you are working in developing countries. By simply stopping at raising, and possibly educating a child, you are missing huge potential, and will ultimately set a child up for failure once they leave the “orphanage” because there is no infrastructure, market, or support within their communities. You are taking a child out of a certain environment, raising them in a wonderful home for many years, then returning them to the same environment they came with. Hopefully, they will have the skills needed to survive in that environment, but surviving is not the same as thriving. That is where we differ at JBFC. We are working to change communities in order to truly and effectively change lives. Ultimately, we hope that our girls will become empowered, educated women who are change-makers in their own society.

A Documentary About JBFC: Little by Little

2010-11-20T01:28:00.003+03:00

It seemed so long ago that Ashli Sims and I were talking about the dream of creating a documentary of the ins and outs of JBFC. It is an incredible idea, but it seemed to be quite the challenge. However, thanks to Ashli and her fellow filmmaker Jonathan Wooley, the dream is about to become a reality. It will be an incredible platform to share our story, our start, what makes each and every member of JBFC tick, and how JBFC has touched the lives of so many people.

But, we need your help to get this dream to the big screen. Ashli and Jonathan have launched a new blog and have begun the incredibly fun process of fundraising. I really encourage you to check out their blog and learn more about the film, filmmakers, and how you can become involved. Please share this link to as many people as possible so that we can start spreading the word about "Little by Little".

http://littlebylittlemovie.wordpress.com/

If you are interested in assisting with fundraising, visit their Kickstart page at:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1801105660/little-by-little

The documentary's title, Little by Little, comes from a Tanzanian proverb. "Little by little, a little becomes a lot." It pretty much sums up what JBFC has done for Tanzanian orphans. And if you give a little and you ask a friend to give a little... a little will become a lot. And we can see "Little by Little" become a reality.

A little about Ashli Sims, JBFC Board Member and New on 6 Reporter:

As a veteran television journalist, Ashli Sims has spent the last eight years telling stories that matter at KOTV in Tulsa, Oklahoma. She graduated from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, was a contributing producer for the Emmy-award winning education series “Raising the Grade,” and has been honored three times with the Marshall Gregory Award for year-long education reporting by the Oklahoma Education Association. Sims has done several stories on Chris Gates and JBFC from his hometown of Tulsa and she’s eager to tell the rest of the story from his home in Tanzania.

Why Africa? Why not help in our own backyard?

2010-11-17T22:27:00.004+03:00

When I am speaking about our work in Tanzania, a question that seems to consistently arise, is: why there, why Tanzania? Why go halfway around the world, when there are so many people here in the America that need your help? It is an interesting question, and one that I have thought long and hard about, and my answer changes slightly from time to time. This very question was recently posed to me by Ashli Sims (JBFC Board Member and News on 6 Reporter), who is working on JBFC's documentary "Little by Little." We were exchanging emails and Ashli, with her incredible persistence, kept trying to figure out what makes JBFC and me tick. She wanted to know the ins and outs of why and how I am doing, and this question kept coming to the surface, despite my best efforts to evade the question.

She has recently compiled my answers to many of her questions, and I thought it would be interesting to share some of her journalistic work on why I am doing what I am doing...

I believe we all have a calling in life, we all have a purpose. If we all followed this calling, the world would be a much better place. I truly feel that Tanzania and these girls, this work, is my calling in life. I am right at home and I feel this is where I should be, doing exactly what I should be doing... I agree there are tons of girls, people, animals, and environmental issues in America that need help, but I also believe that in America, we have the luxury of systems that work to protect and assist people. I have worked in the public sector in New York, and I know how frustrating the bureaucracy and the formalities of our systems can be...however there are systems in place in America, and compared to Tanzania, they work like a very well-oiled machine (mind you, this is definitely in comparison). Since there is a complete lack of systems in Africa, and the third world, I believe these children and the impoverished lives that most people lead, require more help in Tanzania, than is needed in America. When we are working in Tanzania - we are the only system in place to help these people. Whereas in America, there are tons of opportunities, comparatively, that help people bring themselves out of hard times.

MSNBC Appearance with Alex Witt

2010-11-17T22:21:00.003+03:00

Here is the link to my appearance on MSNBC last Sunday with Alex Witt. Pass this link around to your friends and families and help us spread the word of JBFC and what we are doing to help alleviate poverty and rescue children in Tanzania!

Mwenge (Freedom Torch)

2010-11-06T22:12:00.001+03:00

The freedom torch is a national government honor bestowed upon organizations that are making a significant impact ont he communities of Tanzania. It also shows the government's new commitment to assisting JBFC with our needs as we expand.