Conor's Story
I was fortunate enough to have had the opportunity to volunteer with VLM in Masanga, a rural village in the Mara region of Tanzania. After a lengthy journey to one of the country’s most remote corners, we were immediately struck by the hospitality of our hosts and the warmth with which the community received us. Since the beginning of the project in 2006, Masanga has been connected to the electrical grid (a rarity for local villages), a school and health centre have been constructed and a project aimed at preventing female genital mutilation (FGM) has been established.
During the course of our stay, we taught classes at the school, assisted with administrative work, wrote grant applications for the medical centre and participated in other aspects of community life. Our fellow volunteer Siobhán, a qualified primary and secondary teacher, offered teacher training courses, allowing for the sharing of ideas and methods.
Some of the highlights of the experience include a school trip to the Serengeti that we were invited to tag along with, as well as the truly spectacular experience of going to the weekly market in the village. Most striking of all was witnessing the dedication and fortitude of the Sisters and other project workers, who perform exceptional work day in and day out with oftentimes very limited resources.
Perhaps this fortitude was best exemplified in one of the workers in the FGM project, Isabelle. Isabelle had fled her family home as a teenager to avoid undergoing the mutilation ritual, which remains prevalent among certain communities in the region. Sheltered by the staff who endeavoured to protect her from this, her family unfortunately opted to disown her entirely. However, thanks to support from the project, she received a university education and is currently a social worker who helps girls and young women who are in the same situation she once was.
My time in Masanga was a profoundly enriching experience and entailed a massive shift in perspective. After returning home, we began a fundraising project for a bus for the local school, as we had seen the inordinate distances some children walked every day. Thankfully, we were able to achieve this goal, however, there remains much to do to continue to enhance the truly beneficial works undertaken in Masanga.