We have had a long and fruitful working relationship with the community of Esso, a mile outside Arusha in Tanzania.

This is a unique vibrant community consisting of 70,000 people living in terrible conditions. The Pallotines oversee this parish, under the watchful eye of Fr Mike O Sullivan, originally from Kerry.

What we have helped to create, in the few years that we have been involved here,  is a central hub which includes classrooms, a sports and conference centre and a catering kitchen that can provide for 1500 people at a time.

2010 and 2011 have proved to be difficult years, as expected. However, we have achieved a lot of our objectives, especially in Esso, Tanzania and Malawi.  

This was our fourth year working with the community and Fr Mike, who oversees the committee and parish of over 70,000 people. Not only is the sports and conference centre bringing in regular income but the IT classes are hugely popular and the students continue to excel in their exams and learning capability.  

Orla McGrath, originally a Playing for Life volunteer, has committed herself to 3 years in Esso to run the IT classes. We are also lucky to have our volunteer, Jerome Kilkenny from Microsoft. He has been a huge help and support and once again travelled to Tanzania, his second trip, to update and replace older hardware. We now have 35 computers, most of them with flat screens, running on the latest, licensed software and providing invaluable education to the students.  

Another volunteer, Clare Edwards, from Kerry is spending 3 years in Esso to focus on rehabilitation of disabled and handicapped people who live in the slum. She has excellent credentials in the field of remedial physiotherapy and is also helping with the design and layout of the last part of the 4 year project, the Physiotherapy Clinic and Drop In centre.  

Last year, we received a wonderful donation of €100,000 euro to go toward this building and we were able to put another €50,000 towards it so it is well on the way to completion.  The difference it will make to the people living there is immeasurable.  

We could not have achieved any of this without all the public donations and the hard work of our volunteers.  I highly recommend Esso, it will be an experience that will stay with you for a very long time.

Tracy

 

Tanzania: Officially the United Republic of Tanzania (Jamhuri ya Muungano wa Tanzania in Swahili), is a country in East Africa. It is bordered by Kenya and Uganda on the north, Rwanda, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo on the west, and Zambia, Malawi and Mozambique on the south. To the east it borders the Indian Ocean.

Life expectancy: 50 years

• Infant mortality rate: 72 deaths per 1000 live births
• Over 1,600,000 people living with HIV/AIDS (2003 estimate)
• 78% can read and write
• 36% below the poverty line

Review of our last big group in Arusha:

We first came to Arusha in 2007 with a team of 30 volunteers and a container of all sorts of equipment needed to start the short courses discussed with Fr Mike when he tracked Tracy down in Nairobi. He had a vision to build a large sports and conference centre that would serve the whole community of 70,000 in this poor, sprawling parish. When we first saw the area earmarked for the building, it was mere scrubland beside the focal point of the community; A beautiful, small wooden church.  And now we have just completed our 3rd year in Arusha and it has been such a success, not only for the people of Arusha and for us, Playing for Life, but for our volunteers who worked so hard during their stay.

Each volunteer helped out wherever they were required with some discovering talents they didn't know they had!  For example: Ladies Gaelic football players coaching Rugby for 1 day and enjoyed it!

We had a Rugby Coach, David McKeown, who trained the local kids, the local team and arranged for some of the National team to visit. We had Veronica Molloy of Crossogue Preserves travel again to complete the Food preservation programme she started in 2007.  The Health awareness through sport programme was rolled out to the neighbouring schools with the help of Dublin goalie, Cliodhna O'Connor and footballer, Aisling Farrelly along side Playing for Life director, Paula Murray.  We were joined by Clare Horgan & Ken Fortune from Spraoi in Waterford who made a dragon for the World Aids Day parade. We had a Film and Video Workshop set up by Katie Lincoln to train students in the art of event filming.

Lake Region Medical in New Ross continued their fantastic support by raising funds for 4 volunteers to travel with us.  For Lukasz Stefaniak, the trip will remain with him for many reasons not least listening, on his phone, to the birth of his first child who arrived 1 month early just as he arrived in Arusha.  Charlie Kent, Ian Powers, Michelle Vigors and Lukasz proved invaluable to the project and worked so hard that we don't know what we would do without them. Lukasz helped Thomas O'Sullivan with the Music classes, teaching guitar and drums and bodhran, Michelle worked with the English Language classes, Charlie did trojan work on the landscaping around the new creche and Ian worked on the Sports programme and brought his hurley too.

With the financial expertise of Mary Kennedy, the teaching skills of Anne Ryan, Sean O'Dwyer and Melissa Eades and the back breaking effort put into the gardening and landscaping by Catherine Dargin and Aileen McLeod we achieved what we set out to achieve and are so grateful to all these wonderful people.

For more about our work in Arusha, please see Success Stories.