Tanzania is a great country to visit. Destinations like the Serengeti, Ngorongoro Crater, Mt Kilimanjaro, Lake Victoria and Zanzibar offer some of the most amazing travel opportunities across Africa and they are all in one country!
The climate is tropical, so some periods are hotter, wetter or more humid than others, but generally whichever month you travel to Tanzania there is something wonderful to see and do!
Safari- available throughout the year
Scuba diving - available all year
At the moment I am planning my elective placement to Dar es salaam as part of my Midwifery course. I am so excited to have this amazing opportunity but nervous that I now have less than six months to fund the trip!
I decided that I would hold a clothes party. I had been to one before that a friend held where people take along clothes and then other people rummage around and go home with other people’s clothes.
Dig out old clothes, shoes, handbags - anything you don't want to raise funds for your elective!
I thought this was fantastic so I emailed friends and spoke to family and asked them would they be willing to donate any unwanted clothes, bags, shoes etc and I would charge a pound an item for clothing and then a donation of their choice for the rest. It became such a huge event that friends of friends were ringing saying they had clothes for me and would they be able to come. This got me thinking that there was no way I could fit everyone into my home. So I asked the local bowling club if I could borrow there club house for the evening. It had a bar so we had a great night. As it was to raise money they let me have the venue for FREE!!! Fantastic start I thought.
It’s a fact of life; everyone likes to ‘big themselves up’ from time to time! And while we can go on until we’re blue in the face about why you should choose to do your overseas placement with Work the World, the best people to ask are those who did choose us and are on placement right now.
This week we asked students in each of our destinations “why did you choose to do your elective placement with Work the World?” Here are some of the responses…
Students on placement in Mendoza, Argentina
In Argentina the leading answer was the opportunity for students to brush up on their Spanish with our fantastic week-long Intensive Spanish Course. Amanda Woods, a medical student from Alabama said “interacting with patients in a Spanish speaking company is definitely the best way to improve my Spanish…the programme has everything I was looking for.” Amanda also found us to be one of the only companies she researched offering placements in South America and to include the placement, accommodation, food and in-country support in the total cost.
HIV leaves many Ghanaian children orphaned
Who knew you could do paragliding in Ghana…. we certainly didn’t!
Check out these amazing shots from our facebook page:
It's a long way down!
Joe, our Ghana Programme Manager, posted the shots. ”The paragliding festival is an annual event that takes place every Easter and this year’s is between April 6th and 9th 2012″.
When we launch a new programme we don’t just think about one placement, we try to think about how we can best develop the whole experience. In many cases that means including a split placement option or a Village Healthcare Experience. This allows students to compare different settings and get a much broader view of healthcare in their chosen destination. This option repeatedly gets great feedback in our student survey.
Pharmacy is our most recent development, and it’s already proving to be a success. We developed the placement originally because Saskatchewen University in Canada were looking for an overseas placement option for their students. It was a new area for us, but we have the relationships with the hospitals and were able to set up something that matched their requirements.
Pharmacies in developing countries are limited
I was one of five dentistry students from University College Cork who decided to do a two week dental outreach programme in Ghana between fourth and final year.
We had heard about Work the World from students two years above us. They had a great experience with them and found them really helpful to deal with. The huge benefit of going on an organised trip like this is that it makes it all very easy. Dentistry is a very busy course and trying to organise something like an outreach during the year would, I think, be close to impossible. Contact coming up to your departure date is a huge help and knowing there’s someone at the end of a phone to answer any questions really puts your mind at ease.
We chose to fly to Ghana three or four days before the programme started to see a bit of the country. Three days on the beach before starting work didn’t go amiss. Getting around in Ghana proved fairly straightforward; keeping your wits about you, and once you get used to the hectic streets of Accra, the capital and country was fairly manageable. The Saturday night after arriving in Ghana we met in Accra with Frank and Joe who’d be running the programme and the five students from the University of Leeds we’d be working with.
HIV leaves many Ghanaian children orphaned
The Global Health Award is focussed on HIV in communities with severely limited resources, so our placement opportunities in Ghana would be an ideal fit.
The Ghana Aids Commission is working hard to reduce the numbers of infected people, putting aside a budget and encouraging ministries to do the same, but there is an obvious funding gap. Stigma and discrimination are still rife and many people stll hide their HIV status, reducing their chances of obtaining proper treatment. The Government also struggles with the 140,000 + children orphaned by AIDS. Services have been scaled up, but it is estimated that only 7.4% of orphans and vulnerable children have been reached.
This must be one of the first Christmases where I haven’t woken up super early to see what was under the tree.
party hats!
What we have had today though is lots of laughs, fun, food and generally a lot of lazing about in the heat with drinks in hand. All in all it’s been a fantastic day. We made a big breakfast spread this morning, moved the Christmas tree out into the yard and basically set up camp in the cabana for the rest of the day. The girls then moved to the kitchen to make a cake for Emmanuel’s birthday which is also today. After ruining the package cake mix with a rotten egg we had to start from scratch with no recipe and only basic ingredients. It wasn’t the worst cake in the world but that’s about all the praise I can give it. It did look good though. Pimms and lemonade and a BBQ finished of the afternoon and now it’s beers and scrabble as the afternoon cools off and the sun starts to set on Xmas 2011.
I asked everyone what was the best Xmas gift they had ever received. Funnily enough no one could really come up with one. I think what really makes a great Xmas is the people you spend it with and the experiences you share. While I am certainly sad that I am not with family today this had certainly been a unique Christmas and one I am not likely to forget in a hurry.
I have made it to Tanzania safe and sound!
Emmanuele and my new home!
I had my first taste of the Arusha town centre yesterday and today was my first day in the hospital.I have so much to say but I’m not sure where to start. I’m still so overwhelmed and struggling to adjust.
By African standards, I will be living in absolute luxury for the next 8 weeks. The house is in a relatively posh area of town with giant houses surrounded by large fences.
The hospital where I will be spending most of my time is a referral hospital for the region but is still quite basic. The entrance is always quite crowded – it’s a gauntlet of ‘Mambos’, ‘Jambos’ and ‘Taxi?’…. everyone wants to talk to the mzungus! Our Swahili is definitely getting better but I’m sure no-one is fooled. We are still tourists to them.