Category Archives: Community

2018 Capacity Building for Local Artisans / Entrepreneurs Is Here Once Again!!

Category : Community

Here we come Again!! ZH2O through SKAT foundation has been supporting a training program organized by SHIPO SMART Centre in Njombe, at the Southern Highlands in Tanzania.

The aim of this year´s training is to reach new artisans and to expand to new areas in Njombe region as well as in the neighborhood regions in the Southern Highlands of Tanzania and to provide technical skills to local entrepreneurs in the production and installation of rope pumps and different techniques of manual drilling and hand digging.

The 4-week training will be conducted from the 30th April to the 26th of May at SHIPO. It will consist of a technical part during 2 weeks, 1 week will be optional module and a business part for 1 week.

During the first two weeks the trainees will be provided with the required theoretical background on their respective disciplines i.e. welding and drilling. They will probably be divided into 2 groups of drillers and one group of welders. They will have the opportunity to learn by doing while they are working in teams with the supervision of the trainers. Each welder will produce a complete Rope Pump and group of drillers and diggers will drill one tube well using SHIPO drilling method and dig one well. In addition, they will also be taught on how to combine SHIPO method with jetting. Finally, both welders and diggers/drillers will learn how to properly install a rope pump both in a borehole and in a dug well. The two wells will be drilled and dug nearby SHIPO office; one at a neighbour’s plot, while the other one at a church’s plot, which is considered a good chance for promotion.

Participants

The focus of this year’s program is to train new artisans. Some of the artisans belong to existing workshops/drilling groups but most of them are new entrepreneurs who want to start their own business.

New areas, where the SMARTechs have not reached yet, but where there is likely to be strong demand for them were selected. After that, the identification of trainees in those areas was carried out. The different places were visited by the SMART Centre staff and the identified trainees were explained in detail about the goals and conditions of the training. Among the identified artisans, 30 of them have confirmed that they will attend the training. Artisans from Njombe region (Mdandu in Wanging’ombe District, Mawengi in Ludewa District and Bulongwa in Makete district); Iringa region (Igowole, Mafinga, Usokami and Wasa in Mufindi District, and Kilolo in Kilolo District); Ruvuma region (Lilambo in Songea District) and Mbeya region (from Rungwe and Mbozi 3 Districts) will attend the training.

The Training is Organized by SHIPO-SMART Centre in Njombe Tanzania


2018 Child Rights, Protection & Nutrition for School Committees and LGA’s is Here Again!!

Category : Community

The Training aims at bringing debate and knowledge to school leaders and local authorities about crucial social challenges faced in the region that have a direct impact on the education opportunities of the population, such as Child Rights & Child Protection, Reproductive Health and HIV/AIDS, Nutrition & Gender.

The Training will take place in April 2018. A 5-day training session will be implemented with 58 participants at SHIPO’s premises in Njombe.

The training will be facilitated  by a consultant coming from KIWOHEDE NGo (which has expertise in Child Rights, Child Protection, Reproductive Health and HIV/AIDS) and Nutrition expert.

The participants will include 20 school committees Chairmen, 17 Village Education officers, 4 Ward Executive Officers, 4 Ward Education Officers, 4 Ward Community Development Officers, 4 Ward Religious leaders and 4 district authorities.


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Sanitation week Njombe, February 2018

Category : Community

“House is a toilet” (Nyumba ni choo): this year ́s Sanitation Week had the focus on creating awareness of the negative impact on the environment, on our health and some of our actions, especially open defecation and dumping of solid waste.
As an organisation that works on sustainable solutions to promote hygiene and sanitation in Tanzania, SHIPO decided to join the 2018 Sanitation week in Njombe.

Sanitation week was held from Tuesday 13 th to Saturday 17 th , and SHIPO participated on last day that was Saturday were Njombe DC was guest of honour. Visitors arrived from 9:30 am. Among the first ones there was the district commissioner and her crew. After that, multiple small groups of people, including students from the nearby schools visited the SHIPO exhibition place. They got explanations on the posters and technologies and they had the chance to ask questions. Water filters were especially found interesting; most of their questions involved their functioning and revealed their interest in these technologies. Moreover, the district Commissioner herself purchased one of them.


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Farmer’s Day

The main objectives:

  • To give chance to the Farmers and other stakeholders involved in Agriculture sector in Njombe Region to get the opportunity to experience on innovations in agriculture using SHIPO SMARTechs.
  • Also to use the chance to invite Regional commissioner to learn more about SHIPO, this is after he showed a lot of interest to ground water recharging and he promised to visit SHIPO and learn more about it the time he visited by SHIPO Board members and Management team.

Activities Performed during preparation of the event

  • Preparation and rehabilitation of all SMARTech to be demonstrated during the event with cooperation of Kisangani Group, Uvinjo Group and James.
  • Invited different Stakeholders that are involved in Agriculture sector from private and government.
  • Invited Farmers, and SHIPO trained groups to demonstrate other agriculture tools, drilling and digging techniques.

Archievements

  • Mr. Lameck Noah, the Assistance Administrative Secretary for Business and Agricultural production, was the guest of honor on behalf of the regional commission. So SHIPO archived its objective of invite the regional commission in SHIPO to learn more about SHIPO SMARTechs, He was so happy about the technologies and he promised to cooperate with SHIPO to make sure the SMARTechs are recognized. See the picture below of the technologies demonstrated during farmer’s day event
  • SHIPO was able to present in front of the guest of honor, the challenges of not having the policy that recognize the SMARTechs so he promised to work on the request.
  • Other Stakeholders from government and Other NGO’s Were able to see the good opportunities in SHIPO for Agriculture activities and also to demonstrate about their products see the pictures below

This event is organized by SHIPO’S SMART Centre in Tanzania.


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Residential training on subjects for new curricula (STD 1,2) and pre-primary with focus on 3R (Year 1) – INSET ON 3R

Category : Community , Education

After the policy revision of 2014 concerning the educational sector, the structure of basic education has changed. Reforms of the school curriculum have been formulated: some of the subjects have been reorganized, while others have been introduced for the first time within the school teaching.

The residential training on new curriculum focusing  on the 3R approach, which stands for “reading, writing and arithmetic”; these skills are mentioned among the main items of the 2014 revision, oriented towards a program which highlights the basic skills development.

The training has started today and will last for a  total of 12 days. It will be realized for district officers and teachers coming from 2 groups of 10 schools each (6 days per group of schools). There will be 3 teachers per school: one pre-primary teacher, one STD 1 teacher and one STD 2 teacher (when the teacher for STD 1 and STD 2 is the same, the Head of teachers will be invited). Some of the schools can have more than 1 pre-primary teacher and some teachers with babys can ask to come with the caregiver. Therefore, in total, the training is planned to host 95 people: 80 teachers and 6 caregivers (teachers with babies normally bring a caregiver to take care the babies while they are attending the training session), 4 Ward Education Coordinators, and 2 district authorities . The training is  facilitated by tutors coming from Vikindu Teachers’ College, and is held at SHIPO’s premises in Njombe.


MBOZI PROJECT

The Mbozi Famers Livelihood project is an integrated project that involves three implementors namely Heifer Tanzania, SHIPO and Mbozi district council. The project main objective is improving WASH services to schools and community by constructing improved latrines to schools, rainwater harvesting systems to ten schools, provision of training to WASH infrastructure caretakers and community water user’s association as well as the provision of WASH awareness education.

The project is being executed into ten villages which are Isansa, Iwalanje, Haterere, Shiwinga, Igamba, Itepula, sambewe, Rungwa, Mpito and Nasama


NGALANGA OVC

This project targets to help Orphans and Vulnerable Children (OVC) through the provision of psycho-social support and building structures in the community. In addition to that, the project is also incapacitating fostering parents by providing them with Avocados seedling so that they establish their own Avocado farming business that would enable them to get money to help their families. Prior to all these, fostering parents are given training in a proper family upbringing in relation to the project objective.




Mammie

In collaboration with WeWorld Tanzania, a branch of an Italian Organization, SHIPO is implementing the “Mawengi, Mlangali and Milo Integrated Education (MAMMIE) Project 2014-2017. The project aims at improving the quality of education in 20 primary schools in Ludewa District, Tanzania.

PROJECT OVERVIEW

MAMMIE stands for Mawengi, Mlangali and Milo, this is an Integrated Education Project which aims at contributing effectively to the development of quality education in 20 Primary schools in Ludewa District, South of Njombe Region in Tanzania. The main objective of this project is to create conducive learning environment for about 1,000 Pre-Primary school pupils, 6,500 Primary school pupils and 188 Pre and Primary school teachers.

In 2014 SHIPO (Southern Highlands Participatory Organization) started implementing the MAMMIE project in collaboration with WeWorld Onlus, which is a branch of an Italian Organization.

PROJECT OBJECTIVES

  • Improving the quality of education and leaning environment
  • All schools are provided with adequate water, sanitation and hygiene facilities, along with hygiene education.
  • Raising teachers, parents and pupil’s awareness on the principles and practices for good nutrition and healthy eating.
  • Improve teachers, parents and pupils (especially STD 6 &7) awareness on HIV-AIDS, reproductive health, child rights and gender.

To achieve the above-mentioned objectives, we designed an integrated approach which encompassing software and hardware interventions.


HARDWARE INTERVENTION: This include construction of schools building i.e classrooms,latrines, dinning halls and kitchens. Not only that but also provision of equipment/ teaching and learning materials to the schools i.e. books, furniture and other tools.

1. CONSTRUCTION AND REHABILITATION OF INFRASTRUCTURES

Despite higher pupils’ enrollment in primary schools in Tanzania, the country is still faced with problem of inadequate infrastructures. This has a huge impact on improving the quality of education especially in rural areas, which is one on the main objectives of this project. As part of the implementation MAMMIE project works on construction and rehabilitation of different school buildings.

The table below shows the number/type of school buildings constructed/rehabilitated by January 2017.

CONSTRUCTION/ REHABILITATION
Types of infrastructure Total
Construction/rehabilitation of classrooms 9
Teacher’s office 1
Water points 6
Latrine blocks/ pit latrines 8/50
Kitchens with dining halls 5
Dining halls 5
Rehabilitation of existing kitchens 2
Construction of rainwater harvesting system 1
OVERALL TOTAL 37

2. PROVISION OF EQUIPMENT AND LEARNING MATERIALS

Shortage of textbooks and other teaching/learning materials has affected education sector. In an initiative aimed at providing quality education to Pre and Primary school pupils which is the main objective of this project we come up with the learning/ teaching materials provision scheme. This initiative seeks to counter the shortage of resources in the 20 schools that we we are working.

The table below outlines the type/number of material provided to January 2017.

Item Provided To be Provided Progress
Pre-primary book kits 14 0 100%
Teaching aid kit primary 7 0 100%
Pre-primary chairs 360 0 100%
Pre-primary tables 120 0 100%
Pre-primary cupboards 7 0 100%
Kitchen tools 20 0 100%
Pre-primary teaching aids kit 7 1 88%
New pots 16 4 80%
Primary schools desks 200 80 71%
Primary schools tables 66 47 58%
Primary schools cupboards 49 35 58%
Primary schools textbooks Books 2209 2291 49%
Primary schools chairs 60 80 43%
Sport and Playground equipment kits 0 20 0%

3. WATER SUPPLY, SANITATION AND HYGIENE

Improving sanitation is crucial because children’s ability to learn may be affected by inadequate of water, sanitation and hygiene conditions in several ways. As a result of that, pupils can be exposed to contaminants that cause them to suffer from different disease thus will definitely affect their school attendance and performances. We have worked on improving/constructing water supply, sanitation and hygiene infrastructures to make sure that all the 20 schools have access to the above mentioned services.

A) Water Supply infrastructures

We installed 6 wells fitted locally produced pumps in Mapogoro, Mavala, Ikalo, Madunda, Mawengi and Milo Primary Schools. And 1 rainwater harvesting system is finalized in Kitewele.

B) Sanitation

Without school latrines, pupils are exposed to unconfined waste, which makes them vulnerable to sickness and thereby more likely to miss school. Furthermore, when girls are in the period of menstruation, lack of latrines and changing rooms makes them prone to physical and verbal harassment from other students without a safe and private space to clean themselves. Because of that, most of the girls decide not to attend school at all during menstruation period. To solve the problem we have done the following as explained on the table below;

Name of the School Infrastructures
Madunda 6 latrines (18 drop holes, urinal and 1 changing room
Lufumbu 1 latrine (8 drop holes for girls and 1 changing room
Ligumbiro 1 latrine (8 drop holes for girls and 1 changing room
Luvungo 2 latrines (4 drop holes for girls& boys 1 changing room and 1 urinal
Itundu 1 block latrine for teachers
Mawengi 1 block latrine for teachers

SOFTWARE INTERVENTION


1. TEACHER’S TRAINING AND SUPPORT.

Great teachers help create great pupils!

We train and support teachers, school managements and schools committees,because teachers are expected to use the best practices and strategies to improve the quality of education. If teachers are well trained and highly motivated, learning will be enhanced.

For that reason, we have been conducting different training to school management, teachers and school’s committees to help improve teaching methodologies and techniques, as well as school management skills.

TEACHER’S TRAINING AND SUPPORT

Type of Training Objective Who Attended
Training in School Management and Leadership To provide tools, knowledge and motivation to head teachers and selected members of school committees. This training also explored the role and the responsibilities of school committees. Head teachers and school committee’s members for all the 20 schools
Training for teachers in Pre-Primary Education To provide teachers with tools, techniques and motivation on providing quality education to pupils at Pre-primary levels. The focus was on learning by playing approach and in the use of Montessori teaching aids. 60 Pre-Primary school teachers
Training in English and Mathematics The objective of this training was to identify topics under the Tanzanian primary education syllabus which teachers find more difficult for teaches to teach then enable them. 52 teaches from 13 schools
Training on menstrual hygiene management The objective was to help female pupils understand basic hygiene issues during menstruation while at school/home. To also encourage teachers/ family members to support girls attend school during their menstruation. Teachers, Pupils and parents from 4 primary schools