Finally! A new blog entry.

ISACK

Hello everyone!

This is Isack again. I’m very sorry for our silence. We know that you need to know about our activities in Dar. But everyone on our team is busy! That’s why we are quiet. I’m very happy to work with Erik, Jody, Andy, and Charles. I think even myself, I’m supposed to be busy so as to help other people in my community. We have finished the training and every participant enjoyed the training. I’m very happy because now I’m a teacher. I will continue to assist other youth everywhere I go in my country or out of my country. In that case, I will start to tell my friends about how the Pearson Foundation is helping Roots & Shoots to make movies about different problems facing the community during the Jane Goodall Summit. I know that the Pearson Foundation is a friend of kids not in Tanzania only but everywhere in the world. We need to give them support.

All participants learned how to use computers. Some of them they didn’t know how to use computers, to take photos by using digital cameras, and to make movies with software. Every group makes movies about different problems.

Examples include illegal fishing, water pollution, etc. Participants made movies of not more than 90 seconds to use as public service announcements to educate people about different problems facing their community. I hope that when I come back to Dar, I will see some changes if community government can take action based on the public service announcements from Roots & Shoots members.

Lastly, participants came with their parents to celebrate the movies on the last day. Parents watched movies made by their children and even ate and drank together!!! All parents liked the movies. The honorable guest of the event told Mr. Erik on behalf of Pearson Foundation to expand this program to other region in Tanzania .

Hey, time is over!!!! Now I supposed to go to find dinner. Today, I want to eat UGARI then I will come back to continue with my work. Can I tell you what I’m doing? During the training I was busy recording video about visiting and training. Now I have finished editing a movie about the orphanage, Yatima. I had 45 minutes of footage, but had to edit it down to only 6 minutes with meaning. I am now a movie editor! Thanks everyone for visiting our blog.

JODY

Greetings from Nairobi! We flew from Dar on Wednesday, which was a quick one hour flight. The highlight of the flight was seeing Mount Kilimanjaro rising up above the clouds as we were flying. Charles has spent the last few weeks starting to get into shape to climb to the peak in September, despite scary stories that the final 50 meters usually takes something like 12 hours to crawl to the top… However, after seeing how far up into the sky he would have to go, as well as a lovely Kenyan waiter informing us that it really is a terrible climb; Charles is now focusing his efforts on surmounting the Mount Kenya, and building strong muscles to embrace his wife.

We arrived safely and immediately started working with the brilliant Longman Kenya team in preparation for the Sara program which we started today. We are working in partnership with Kenya Girl Guides and SOS Children's Village who have helped identify 20 girls from around Nairobi and mentors from their organizations to participate in the digital arts program. Everyone is incredibly organized and excited about this week's residency and the girls today were full of energy and creative ideas for the movies they are going to make. We are all really looking forward to developing the program this week and working with this great group.

My personal highlight since we've been here was my birthday-eve celebration on Thursday evening. We met up with two of my Ethiopian 'brothers' who have been living in Nairobi the past few years, and went to a very fun dance place downtown – a live band from DRC who had some very good tunes and dance moves, good conversation and the feeling that I had arrived into a warm family who all look after each other…I guess it's a good time to be another year older. Ha!

We will write more towards the end of this week with stories about the girls and perhaps an adventure or two!

ANDY

Hello all. It has been a crazy ride so far. We finished our residency in Dar es Salaam on Friday last week. We ended the program with an amazing celebration at the Jane Goodall Institute offices. The proud students showed their movies to a crowd of dignitaries, teachers, media and family. The movies ranged from how to reuse plastic bags, to an announcement that fishing with explosives hurts our environment.

It was quite amazing to watch everyone take the project as their own. I think the most exciting part of our experience in Dar was to watch the students we had last year become the teachers this time. They did an amazing job, and made us very proud. Speaking of amazing people, Isack is now making his final preparations before he leaves to America. If you happen to be in Orlando next week, drop by and say hello to him!

Earlier in the week, we had all faced a few health issues, the worst of which was Erik passing a kidney stone with no pain killers. Brilliant. After recovering from these issues, we are all happy to be healthy and doing just fine.

We had met a famous rap artist in Tanzania, who came to talk to motivate the students. His name is Fid Q. We agreed to go with him to Zanzibar to make a music video with him. It actually turned out to be less expensive to stay in Zanzibar than in Dar, so we got back on the ferry and headed back to the island. We had a great weekend, met some amazing people, watched some amazing music, and finished most of a music video. We then packed up and got on the plane to Kenya.

ERIK

We have much to report from Kenya. Things are going really well. We have 21 amazing girls with some very emotional stories. We’ve been lucky in that we have two counselors with us to take care of the girls who are telling their stories for the first time. Overall, it has been emotional for all of us, but the girls are all strong and totally focused on getting their stories out so that they can help girls who are in similar situations. To avoid this blog entry going on and on, I’ll leave it at that and tell you more in a couple of days.