Arusha Campus News – 14 Feb 2022

One of the beautiful craters that our Duke of Edinburgh International Award hikers came across this weekend.

Apologies for the late arrival of your Arusha Campus newsletter this week. I have had the pleasure of being involved in the Duke of Edinburgh Award since Friday and so have spent more of the weekend tramping through muddy rivers (above) than behind my computer screen! As I explain later in the bulletin, I couldn’t have been more proud of our participants. They excelled themselves, without a grumble to be heard, in spite of the torrential downpours on both Friday and Saturday nights. I would like to especially thank all the teachers who took part and helped by walking with the Bronze Adventurers. The teachers all have work to do and papers to mark and yet they spent the whole of Saturday and Sunday (and Friday in some cases!) getting lost, muddy and soaked to the skin!

This evening, the Senior Leadership Team of UWC East Africa were welcomed by the CIS/MSA/IB Visiting Accreditation/Authorisation Team via Zoom. We had a meeting to prepare ourselves for the week-long virtual visit that will take place from tomorrow. The visit is intended to enable us to measure ourselves against our own expectations as well as against the benchmarks set by international schools around the world and the visiting team (from other schools internationally) are ‘here’ to help us accomplish that.

A long newsletter this week as we hear about the Diploma Project Week too.

And in spite of all of this news I am missing out the main news story that we all want to hear about………..WHO WON HOOPS FOR HOPE? Well, we will just have to wait until next week for a full report!

Have a super week ahead.

Phil

Our splendid restaurant area nestling in the emerald football pitch in the foreground with snow-capped Mt Meru peeping out from behind! (photo by Harald Peeters)

Saturday 19th February Arusha PTA Car Boot Sale 10am

Tuesday 22nd February World Mother Tongue Day (Arusha Campus Celebration Day)

Wednesday 23rd February Primary Inter House Swimming Gala

Thursday 24th February Peaks Level 4 Ngorongoro

Friday 25th February Plains Level 5 Ngorongoro

Celebrating 100 Days of School (above and below)

100 Days of School represents growth, progress and achievement in our classrooms. It is a time to celebrate and to cooperate with others. Leading up to the 100th day the students developed their knowledge of numbers. The lower PYP classes students have learned to count forwards and backwards, tens and ones, addition and subtraction, odd and even numbers, patterns and more.
Our celebration this week saw the MYP and the PYP join together in a wide variety of activities from arts and crafts to movement and creative play. It was fantastic to see the communication and collaboration of the classes. I know the PYP’s had a fantastic time but I think the MYP’s miss their primary school days.

Thanks

Amanda

Last week our P2 Class was invited to Braeburn International School to compete in the Cup of Nations. Our players (above) were tremendous and made their watching mums and dads very proud indeed!

Some hardy DofE’ers above tackle a steep muddy slope and river crossing during this weekend’s rain soaked Adventure

This weekend saw both our Silver Award and Bronze Award participants of the Duke of Edinburgh Award embark on their respective adventures. Silver Adventure comprises a three day, two night walk whilst the Bronze entails a two day, one night adventure. Students must orienteer to a number of checkpoints en route to a campsite. They must carry everything that they will need including food and tents.

Silver Adventurers (Avalon, Valerie, Harry, SeungGyu, Emma, Vivek and Gaby) navigated immaculately. Their experience gained from the bronze award of last year really showed as they didn’t miss a checkpoint, and reached their intended destinations ahead of time -every single time!

Bronze Adventurers (Troy, Alvar, Juanita, Sophie, Nailah, Chiara, Sameeha, Sahil, Suryanshu, Liam, Vihaan and Alutte) encountered the occasional map reading conundrum but overall they all overcame the DofE challenges laid before them.

Congratulations everyone!

This weekend I took a break from Diploma students and accompanied the MYP Duke of Edinburgh International Award students. Here I am (above on the right), enjoying the rain and mud!

And the mock examinations are over! It has been a long week for the D2 students, ending this past Monday with the science papers (Biology, ESS and Physics) as well as the last Economics paper for HL students. From now on, the main focus will be the internal assessments and the official exams starting on the 29th April. Graduation is just around the corner!

In the meantime, the D1 students have had a very successful Project Week and many came back very excited about sharing their experience. See below a summary from each group leader:

Nathalie

DP Co-ordinator

We went to Kizimkazi Village in Zanzibar to join the Social Entrepreneurship Program organized by Assalam Community Foundation. It was not easy to reach Zanzibar at the beginning, it cost 7 different transportation including train and 41 hours 🙂 However, we were amazed by the blue and green, excited by the new people we met when we finally arrived! We took classes about business models, sustainability, fundraising and we applied the knowledge on the workshops on brainstorming for the Youth Center Project of the foundation. We also had some time to volunteer for the sewing workshop and the construction. The week ended with the presentation we had for the Youth Center and we got our certificates. We left with stories to tell and many photos to share!

Irem, D1

Our Project, Home, entailed the production of a short film symbolically recreating a personal story of domestic abuse and gender based violence of a local Tanzanian woman. Prior to Project Week, we went to a local NGO, Perfect Women Vision, which is a women’s empowerment group that helps women who have had a hard past. After we heard about her horrid past, we started working on the pre-production of our short film. We wrote the script, composed music, made shot lists, prepared the props, casted actors and found the right location to film. Then when project week arrived all that was left to do was the actual shooting of the short film, which proved to be a lot of hard work, but by working as a collaborative team we got it done. Over the course of two days, from very early in the morning until late at night, we worked together with three talented dancers to finish filming all the scenes. Now, we are in the stage of post production, which mainly involves editing. Hopefully we can introduce you all soon to our short film: Home.

Roos, D1

It has been an amazing experience at the school of St Jude in Arusha, taking our time to explore education in Tanzania and share our experience with the students. Our engagement included doing Environmental activities and being part of their Music classes, Art classes, Physical Education classes, Economics Classes, Career Guidance, and Extra-Curriculum activities, which include Volleyball, Football, and Basketball. It’s our hope we have launched a long-lasting relationship between the schools

Emmanuel, D1

‘A Helping Hand’ was our project initiative to volunteer at Pamoja Leo, an orphanage and family-based institution in Tanga City.  Whilst being at Pamoja Leo, we were able to paint a mural for their library, help to organize donations, clothes and games they received, teach crafts such as Jewelry making, play and interact with children that ranged from the age of 2 years old to 17 years of age. We were also able to learn about Pamoja Leo’s mission and projects, such as data tracking that bring families together from all across Tanzania.

Evelyn, D1

Our UWCEAid team project was centered around animal care and welfare in Tanzania. We spent our week at vet clinics in Dar es Salaam shadowing veterinary medicine professionals and learning more about the industry as a whole. We were able to watch surgeries, take part in home visits and learn more about the inner workings of each clinic and what goes into making one run smoothly, We also conducted interviews with staff and hope to use the footage collected to create an educational video campaign for social media to help educate and spread awareness in Tanzania about domestic animal care and welfare and hopefully encourage more people to take an interest!

Ruthie, D1

The project Revive and Retweet Kili took place in Moshi from 31 January to 4 February. Michal, Christian and I climbed the Machame and Marangu routes each up to the first camp to find about changes in the national park that are caused by global warming, climate changes and increasing tourism. Through interviews with park officials, guides, tourists, and locals we got an insight into the economic and ecologic importance of Mount Kilimanjaro for the region and Tanzania as a whole. The information that we gathered, and the additional background research and official statistics will be used to create a website that informs about the impacts of global warming on Kilimanjaro, the mountains regulating function for the region, the advantages and problems that come with international tourists and how local people are impacted by all that. Our goal is to raise awareness about the essential role that Kilimanjaro plays for Tanzania and how this potential can be used and preserved optimally.

Annabell, D1

For our Unmuted project, we are making a short documentary series on women in Tanzania. We wanted to show the reality of inspiring hard working women and girls with dreams and goals. Media coverage in Tanzania is predominantly male, and women are often underrepresented. They are kept silent in the background. We wanted their stories to be heard, their opinions to matter, their voices to be unmuted. During our project week we traveled to Moshi, to collect as much footage as we could. We interviewed all women we met on the way that agreed: local business owners, people working in shops, the lady who runs Kishari house, and so on. Showing highly accomplished women as well as the women you see in everyday life.
An impactful part of our week was when we visited a government school in Moshi and got permission to speak to some of their students. They were all around our age and brave enough to tell us their stories, unfiltered, to do whatever they could to empower women all over Tanzania. We really connected with them and listened to each of them in awe, returning to the school multiple times to continue speaking with them. In the documentary, we are hoping to combine all their stories, hopefully broadening the understanding of women and the issues they face in their country, showing their achievements and struggles. We will continue to work on this project, with multiple meetings scheduled here in Arusha, and hope to really make this project transcend project week.

Julieta, D1

“During project week we took on the challenge of creating the first-ever UWC East Africa Leavers’ book for this year’s Graduating Class. The week began with us sorting through the wide range of responses of the google form sent out to D2s and using them to create a digital copy of the book through Canva. It was a bit difficult to navigate at first but as the IB learners we have become, we persevered and were close to finishing the soft copy of the book by Wednesday morning. Thereafter, we ventured into Arusha town to look for sponsors and printers who would be willing to support our project. By the end of the week, we not only completed the soft copy of the book, but we also secured incredible sponsors including, Gupta Auto Spares & Hardware, Benson & company, Blink Internet, Miracle Experience, Tanzanite Experience, SWS, Schwari, Smart Outfitters as well as Serena Hotels & lodges. We would also like to thank our project supervisor, Ms Emmyrose, for guiding us through this journey and ensuring that we were working in the right direction. Despite the occasional setbacks, it was a very enjoyable week and we hope that this idea can be continued and ultimately be turned into a legacy project.

Sehra, D1

Our project week being the school mural, Olivia and I decided to paint a silhouette inside the boys and girls bathroom below the canteen that would show the diversity we have in school and serve as a general indicator of whose toilet is which. We took pictures of staff, students, and teachers to include in the silhouette and edited them so we could paint over them. At first, editing the pictures took a lot of time off our hands and stressed us because we wanted to be done within the deadline. But once we started with painting, we were proud of our work and progress. Unlike the boys’ bathroom, the girls’ one doesn’t have a wall in the entrance so we painted cardboard which will be hung inside.

Pearl, D1

During the Bubble Guppies project, Marius, Yasna and I used drama as a way to start conversations with the students of Oldadai Secondary School and Elorai Secondary School. We performed short skits for them that depicted problems that are not often talked about in public schools. This led to discussions about peer pressure, consent and gender roles. We were also able to understand the students on a deeper level when they showed us their talents such as dancing at the end of the activity. Due to the success of this project, both schools would like for the programme to continue. 

Gino, D1

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