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
We think that one of the hardest parts of organising an elective is actually deciding where to go. Whether you’re tempted by the tribes of Africa; the mountains of Asia or the flavour of South America, wherever you decide to go, your elective overseas will no doubt enrich both your professional and personal development in a safe, supported environment.
We currently work in seven locations around the world and like to talk to students in depth about each destination before they make a decision – this way they can work out which placement is most suited to them. So the question we chose to ask the houses this week is “Why did you choose to do your placement in the destination you’re in?”
A Sri Lankan beach
Now, time to discuss the leisure aspect of your Arusha placement. First and foremost, visit the Paradiso orphanage. Babu (Grandfather) and Bibi (Grandmother) welcome you with open arms, along with there eighteen (and counting) children. Laugh, sing and play with kids, eat chapattis!
Zebras are brilliant!
Of course I am going to talk about safari…… “Bright Visit” was the safari company I used. The coordinator and cook were impeccable and we had so many breathtaking experiences. I had the opportunity to visit Lake Manyara, Serengeti, and Ngorongoro crater. All three were amazing and filled with lots of wildlife – they were a beauty I can not put in words.
The relocation of the programme from Zanzibar to Dar es Salaam has finally been completed and the first students arrived over the Easter weekend. The Dar programme boasts the biggest Work the World house so far with a capacity to comfortably accommodate 37 students at anyone time, and we’re already completely booked up for some of the summer!
Arriving on ferry to Dar
The move was quite a mission! 6 lorries and several ferry trips were needed, so Dave flew over to Dar to help Majenda and Baptista. “Apart from a small problem with the ferries – in that they were closed for the public holidays at the exact time we had planned to transport all the furniture over – everything went like clockwork (well African clockwork anyway!) and for a few days we were truly on the move!”
Nicole's question!
This week, our office manager Nicole had a question for the different houses….
“What do the students get up to during their weekends?”
Poon Hill trek
Sunil was the first to come back with the lowdown on the two Nepal students – Sundeap said that “at home we would normally just hang out with friends, but in Nepal we always make set plans. Sometimes it works sometimes it doesn’t and so we just go with the flow!”. Rosie added that “the most exciting trip so far was our trip to the peace pagoda on the other side of the lake. It was amazing, but we didn’t realise how long we had been there. At 7pm all the boats back to Pokhara had left and we got stranded. In the end we had to swim across……… ha ha, not really…… Sundeap shouted enough for a boat to eventually come and get us back to the right side of the lake.”.
The Dental Outreach Project taking place on Zanzibar this summer is shaping up to be quite an event. Following the great success of the team in Zanzibar last year, it looks like we are going to be able to expand upon the project by over 300%. This is great news for both us and the village of Kivunge, who were our hosts last year, as it means we can provide more much-needed free dental care to the villagers, including those schoolchildren that were unable to obtain treatment last time round because of inevitable time constraints.
Screening in Kivunge
The Dental Outreach Programmes are designed to bring free assessments and treatment to villages and schools that don’t have access to dental healthcare. We started offering them in Ghana and India as a way to create a sustainable project that utilised the skills of dental placement students, whilst also providing hands-on dental experience for our elective students. Visiting rural communities we quickly realised how much dental care they need – as many as 70% of the children we screened last year needed to be referred to our free clinic for actual treatment.
Sana's winning photo
The Big Picture
Overall Winner – Sana Ghaznavi!
Prize: £250
We have had some amazing entries for this years competition, but it was unanimously agreed that the image that captured the spirit of living in another country, was Sana Ghaznavi’s shot of a young Maasai boy at sunrise.
Sana’s image was taken “in the summer of 2009. I did a medical elective with Work the World in Tengeru, a rural village outside of Arusha, Tanzania. As a part of my elective, I went to live in a Maasai village, where I learned about traditional Maasai medicine, and met the village’s medicine man (a spiritual healer). I had a great time during my stay. The experience has given me insight into a culture and way of life vastly different than my own.”
Our sister company Gap Medics has officially launched! We asked our Work the World Tanzania students what they thought about the opportunity to gain medical or nursing experience in your gap year…
Over in Zanzibar, medic Emily commented that “doing a Gap year medical placement overseas would help in university applications. It shows you are dedicated to pursuing a career in medicine and would help you stand out from the crowds.” Sarah Burn agreed that “it demonstrates commitment to the subject”.
Deborah had some concern that patients and doctors “may get confused about the competence of the student and give them more responsibility than they can handle because they do not understand that they have not started med school yet” and we agree. In such a busy and often difficult environment you could easily find yourself misinterpreted and out of your depth. That’s why at Work the World and Gap Medics we place such a heavy emphasis on good placement supervisors. If they understand your skills and why you are there, you should never find yourself in a difficult situation that you cannot cope with. More importantly patients are not put at risk,