What We're Actually Doing

"But Fabian, I thought you'd already done a post about what you're doing in Tanzania?" To that question, I'd say yes I have and point you in the direction of the post called "How I'm Helping". Now here's the problem - VSO ICS communications haven't been the best in the world, so it's taken quite a while for me to understand what I'm really doing.

Previously I'd been worried that I would just be training people up specifically for the purpose of them getting a job in the gas industry that is emerging in Mtwara. A guy from the Enhancing Education through Vocational Training (EEVT) had come in to see us and explained that we were providing soft training (I'll explain what that entails later) to students from VETA Mtwara college. He seemed to make a strong connection between VETA students and the afore-mentioned industries.

Tuuuuurns out that he hadn't been perfectly clear and he came from a very specific angle. Many gas companies are investing in EEVT and VETA in the hope that the graduates from VETA college will go on to learn the skills necessary for the industry and work for the companies. The plan is to start building an offshore gas plant in 2025 that will be used to export gas and therefore create a lot of wealth and development in Tanzania. The reason these companies are investing in VETA is that the government has agreed with the companies that 80% of all workers in this process must be from Tanzania, instead of importing workers from overseas.

The thing is, VETA Mtwara college doesn't really do work specific for the gas industry and actually educates people from 15-35 in a range of industries, such as Wielding, Food Service/Production and Plumbing. This is where I come in. Although I can't provide them with the specific skills needed for those sorts of jobs, I can provide them with the general skills required to get jobs. This is pretty important, as youth (considered 16-35) are 57.3% of the work force, yet 11.7% of them are unemployed.

As we're the first Mtwara team for quite a long time, we basically have to start from scratch. We'll be doing a lot of things:

1. We'll analyse the data from multiple surveys that we will create to get an understanding of where the students are at right now, then do another survey at the end of our time here to see if we've been effective. This should mean that we can give pointers to the team that will follow us once we've left.

2. We'll (a smaller group of 5) be facilitating lessons to improve their English, CVs, Communication, Interview Skills and possibly even more soft skills. The difficulty is the language barrier, as students have varying levels of English, but that's where the Tanzanian volunteers are a God-send. The students' feedback and our own feedback on these lessons will be really important, as the temporary manual we have for now will be added to and edited for future cycles to follow.

3. The whole Mtwara team (about 20 people) have also been asked to help organise a section of a jobs fair in both Mtwara and Lindi! We'll be given a budget and a fair bit of freedom with how we do things. At the moment, that means we'll be setting up stalls to provide a large amount of information in a short time, but we're looking to contact some VETA graduates that are currently employed who can answer some specific questions for students that we wouldn't be able to help with. As a lot of companies will be coming down, I'm also hoping to convince EEVT that we should be putting students in contact with these companies, so that we and the students can really be working towards an event and we'll be able to tell how effective we've been. The problem is that this is the first time a fair like this has been put on by VETA, so we'll just have to see.

4. As part of the goals I've set myself with my Team Leaders is to improve my networking and communication skills, I'll be in contact with teachers to update them on our progress (all of the work we're doing requires a lot of paperwork, as we need to provide evidence for both VSO ICS and the Tanzanian government) and possibly push for more lessons. There'll be other things to do, but that's the basic level I'll be starting at.

That's quite a lot on its own, so you'd be forgiven for thinking that's everything, but ICS want to get there money's worth out of us, so there's more stuff to do outside of VETA college:

1. We'll organise things called Community Action Days where we, as a large group, go into the community to campaign about certain issues that we think are relevant. This will be happening 3 times whilst we're in Mtwara.

2. Similarly and more frequently, we'll be organising Active Citizenship Days where we, this time in smaller groups of 3 or 4, will organise discussions and provide information on certain topics, inviting the relevant people in the community to attend.

3. Finally, we'll also be sussing out the general understanding in Mtwara of the UN's Sustainable Development Goals and then promoting ways of locals contributing towards these in affordable and realistic ways. In my optimistic mind, that could mean we try and help someone to set up a business where people collect all of the plastic in and around Mtwara to send to a recycling centre. At the moment people just throw plastic on the ground or just burn it, which clearly isn't environmentally friendly and is a waste of an opportunity.

Halfway through all of this, there'll be a Mid-Phase Review that runs over a weekend just to confirm that we're all on track and on the same page. Then at the end there'll be a big Debrief over a couple of days so that we can hand over to the next cycle! All of this in just another 9 weeks, alongside learning some Swahili and becoming integrated into the community.

So that's pretty much everything that we'll be doing. Or I could just be completely wrong again. We'll see.