After working in international development for the last 3 years with The Hunger Project, in the summer of 2010 I had a vision about working in Africa. In October 2010 I visited my brother in Tanzania and an idea started to take shape. I applied to VSO (Voluntary Services Overseas) in January, got accepted in March and found a suitable placement in July. On 2nd October 2011 I arrived in Dar es Salaam in Tanzania for 24 months. After working with an advocacy organisation supporting private sector development for six months, I’ve changed placements.
I’m now working for UN Women. My new role is Livelihoods and Environment Advisor. What this means in practice is supporting a group of rural women in Lindi and Mtwara in Southern Tanzania who’ve spent 6 months training in India training to be solar power technicians, through an organisation called Barefoot College . They need help setting themselves up in business.
Alongside this I’ll be coordinating the set up of a training school in Mtwara. It’s on the site of an existing vocational college and will mean that Tanzanian women can be trained in country rather than being sent to India every time. Finally, there is a need to create networks of women who are trading across borders within East Africa and are facing physical and sexual harassment because they don’t know their rights or have a collective voice. Tanzania borders with Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Zambia, Malawi and Mozambique so there’s plenty of choice of places to work.
September 23, 2011 at 2:02 AM
Best of luck Lesley…thanks for your words of encouragement throughout my posts. I hope very much that you have as rewarding, life altering and generally fantastic time as Cameron and I!