A second-year student in Education, Naomi Lions has recently returned from Tanzania where she volunteered with women’s charity, The Justice for Women and Children Foundation, providing vital healthcare initiatives in the local community, and at a local primary school. Inspired by the Changemakers’ aim to make impactful change, Naomi chose to work in poor, rural areas of Tanzania, where she felt she could really make a difference.
It was Naomi’s passion for impactful community work that initially drew her to the Changemakers programme, and it was during a residential event that her vision to make her own change in the world took shape. Embracing the idea of experiencing somewhere completely different to the world she knew, she chose Tanzania. Her journey proved to be an education in itself; an incredibly rewarding experience that came with plenty of emotional challenges too.
Naomi said:
“Before volunteering in Tanzania, I approached social issues with empathy but mainly through an academic lens. My understanding of topics like poverty, access to education, and social disparities was grounded in studies, research, and theory. However, I have now seen first-hand what poverty looks like. Each time I go shopping now, I’ve learned to stop and reflect on what I am about to buy. I now tell myself; do I really need this? And the answer is no. Rather the people who really need this are thousands of miles away, struggling every day to put food on the table. This trip has taught me to appreciate even the smallest things that before I took for granted. It has also taught me that you do need materialistic objects to make you happy, only the people around you.”
Naomi’s project was made possible by a ‘Change in the Community Fund’ that she secured through the Changemakers programme. The fund is awarded to students wishing to volunteer with established charities or projects aimed at achieving public good and covers expenses like travel, accommodation and resources.
The fund is supported by Rupert Baines, Serial Entrepreneur and Investor, Associate Fellow of Homerton College.
Rupert said:
“Education is so much more than academia, and Changemakers exemplifies this: learning in its widest sense. I am delighted to sponsor students, and every year am impressed by how they push themselves, what they achieve and the impact they have on the world.”
Tanzania 2024, by Naomi Lines
I have always taken travelling for granted. At 11 I was excited to travel to France for the first time, but then France didn’t seem as exciting afterwards. At 13 I first went on a plane. Again, I was nervous and excited, yet soon after, flying seemed a chore and not a luxury. At 17 I first solo travelled but after 3 countries I was always looking forward to the next. But at 19 I first went to Africa. And then instead of again looking forward to where I might go next, I found myself looking back on all that I have: a shower, a toilet, no fear of where the next meal will come from, the freedom to travel. “I have never been on a plane”. I don’t understand why words like that struck me. I am in Africa I told myself that night. I should have expected this. But then I heard hesitant whispers of “never being to another country”. And again, I would find myself stunned. I would think back to France, to that first plane journey and everyone since and think how can two people, the same age, with the same ambitions and the same love and support a family can show, live so differently. How is that fair? It took me coming to Africa to not simply brush past the answer but to dwell on it: it is not fair. And it is time for us to actively do something about it.
It was a cold winter’s day in Tanzania when I arrived. Well, when I say cold, I mean 25 degrees, but I promise you there was not one person with skin bear. The first charity I would volunteer with would be an NGO named The Justice for Women and Children Foundation run by a women named Jesca. From the moment she greeted me and from every moment after I felt like part of the family. In Tanzania she would be considered to live a comfortable life but if you were to visit, I am sure you would all disagree. I would share the same small bed as my host, no bigger than a single, most kindly given up by the 76-year-old grandmother, Bebe. I remember the feeling when I first saw the bathroom. When looking back at the bathroom in my house or even the small wet room in the corner of my room in Westhouse, this was no bathroom. The toilet was present but with no flush and rather one would need to scoop water using a tin bucket to flush. When it came to the shower, water would be boiled over sticks then poured into one bucket. I would stand, a bucket in hand scooping 5/8th a bucket of cold water and the remainder hot: it took many tries to formulate the right combination. But to me that did not matter. I had a new family. I have 4 new younger sisters: 2-year-old twins Giovanna and Giavanna, 4-year Nicole and 10-year-old Lulu. I also had 4 new aunties and uncles: Mary, Jesca, mama Lulu, Abeil, Elsante and one who sadly passed away young.
I have never been on a motorbike or a boda boda as they call them in Tanzania. To get to the village I was helping in it took over 3 hours: 1 ½ hours by bus then 1 ½ hours by boda boda up a dirt track path towards the middle of nowhere. As we rode, dust and dirt would blind the path ahead, often finding us swerving to miss goats or cows roaming freely. I did not realise we were in any such village when we had apparently arrived. When I try to think back to what I saw first I can only think of one child. He was no older than 2 but so thin. His scratched skin hugged his bones, leaving the child more skeleton than human. And this would happen again, one child after another but each with one illness worse than the rest: scabies, kwashiorkor, malaria. The aim of the charity was to provide medical and nutritional care for young mothers and their children so they could have the best start in life. Day 1 consisted of visiting each house in the village and assessing the needs of each child. But this was no house. Do you ever remember going into a forest and seeing these hundreds of sticks attached together with rope to make a small and hole ridden hut? That is where they would live. As we would approach each house, the mother would come out, no father in sight. Then the children would come out: 5, 6, 7, 8 followed by the chickens and the goat. We would sit the children down and stroke their heads as the medical checks were carried out. Many would cry as their scars were cleaned or ointments applied. All but 1 were underweight and starved.
On day 2 I would soon learn about the harsh reality of everyday life. We were a 1 ½ hour motorcycle ride from the nearest road. To make money everyday wood would be foraged and walked the 4 hours to the local market where it would be sold for a pittance and water collected to be carried back on their heads.
As long as they would want to live, this had to be done. On day 3 I learned about pregnancy and where they would give birth: the bush. When a young girl was pregnant, to avoid the blood spill in the house, the women would walk over to the bush alone and deliver. These mothers were 15, 16 and 17 years old, some with 3 or more children. That day we would conduct a check on a newborn barely larger than a hand, the mother 14 years old. And this is how it would go on: wake up at 5am, take the bus then the boda boda, conduct the checks, provide any medication we could afford then return. Each time I would come with a gift for the children: lollipops and biscuits. Whilst it was only a small gesture, you could tell by their faces that for them this was like winning the lottery. I am someone who does not cry yet often I found tears in my eyes.
It is one thing hearing about the poverty, it is another thing seeing it.
And that would complete part 1 of my trip. I would then take a bus to Moshi and help in a local primary school and nursery. Whilst the facilities were basic, there was a slide made out of a ladder and a plank of wood and two sets of swings. Lessons were very basic and switch between those conducted in English and Swahili. But these children paid for school. They were considered more well-off than those in the village.
As I was arriving at the airport and waiting for a train, a lady asked me a question about where I had been. When I told her she asked me: “Was there a big difference between those who were rich and those who were poor?” I would tell her that from what I witnessed there was no rich and poor, only the poor and starving.
I am very thankful to Rupert Baines and the Changemakers Team for giving me the opportunity to have this experience. Calling it an experience feels wrong because this is how people live. I hope to return soon to continue making a change in the community!
