At the beginning of December I, Sylvie Sprangers of the Marthe van Rijswijck Foundation, visited the projects of the Dutch NGO Ukengee. Their project area is in the South-East of Tanzania around the town Mtware. This is a very undeveloped area although it seems that this could be changing in the near future since natural gas was found for the coast. It generally shows that once natural resources have been found in an area this automatically results in development in that area. How this will develop over the coming years time will. During my stay I visited two schools were they have installed their computer labs over the previous years.
A short report about the visit to the first school:
The First school we visited was the Lindi secondary school in Lindi. This school has over 900 students. The computer lab at this school was implemented in 2010. All the computers functioned well during the visit and everything looked fantastic. Frank, the computer teacher at this school explained to us enthusiastically his teaching methods and showed us how the computers work. He seemed very capable just like the children in his class. At this school all 900 students use the computer. During our visit we also spend some time talking to the head master. He told us that because of the project, next year students would be able to participate in the state- computer exam for 0-level. Before the installation of the lab this wasn’t possible since the exam requires a practical examination to be completed by the students. It was explained to us that this exam will be very important for the school and students since it will give them the opportunity to continue with their a-levels afterwards. Completing a-levels will give them the opportunity to go to university. A nice goal for 2012
In my opinion the NGO does impressive work, setting up sustainable, innovative projects in a very underdeveloped area. The projects seem to be having a good impact for the schools in a relatively short period of time. Their choice to use high quality equipment definitely contributes to the success of the project.