New Dates for the Camp

Hey folks!!!
New dates for the camp are as follows...

Camp begins in Mwanga 23rd June
Camp finishes in Mwanga 4th July

After this I will continue on the Development Perspectives programme for a while!!Flying out on the 20th June and flight back on the 14th Augest!!

Dates

29 June - 18 July

Finally got dates organised for the programme. Will have three one week long camps with approximately 25-30 kids at each week. So hopefully myslef and Paddy can reach out to almost 100 kids in Mwanga through the programme!! Ben Mongi the coordinator with Uvikuta, Tazania has mentioned the great response coming from the community of Mwanga. Hopefully this project will be a great success. Maybe something annual that can make a developing difference to a local community through sports!!!

Funding has been Approved

Got the great news yesterday (3/4/08) that the funding for the Sports Camp has been approved by Irish Aid. This means that I will not have to worry about paying the flights and looking after myself when on the programme for the three weeks. The other projects that received funding are Development Perspectives Tanzania and Development Perspectives Uganda. We are still waiting on dates of the project but we should know more by the end of the week. This funding is great news for the programme as it is the first time it is to be run and who knows it could be an annual thing that could build to become something brilliant!!

Paddy O'Connor

Paddy is a gaa coach coordinator in Longford for the last year since graduating from college in Dundalk IT with a BA (hons) Community Sports Leadership. He has had great success already in his coaching career winning the Lynch Cup in 2007 with DKIT Ladies. Paddy is very motivated and willing to lend a hand at anything to help development. He also was a memeber of Development Perspectives 1 that took place in Sri Lanka.

Paddy is a keen sports person. He is highly active with his local GAA club Longford Slashers and plays basketball with Longford Falscons.

Mwanga Village Facts

Mwanga is one of the six districts of the Kilimanjaro Region of Tanzania. It is bordered to the northeast by Kenya, to the northwest by the Moshi Rural District, to the west by the Mosh Urban District, to the southwest by the Manyara Region, and to the south by the Same District.
According to the 2002 Tanzania National Census, the population of the Mwanga District was 115,620.

Tanzania Facts

About

Officially named the United Republic of Tanzania (Swahili: Jamhuri ya Muungano wa Tanzania), is a country in East Africa bordered by Kenya and Uganda on the north, Rwanda, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo on the west, and Zambia, Malawi and Mozambique on the south. To the east it borders the Indian Ocean.
The country's name is a portmantea of Tanganyika, the large mainland territory, and Zanzibar, the offshore archipelago. The two former British colonies united in 1964, forming the United Republic of Tanganyika and Zanzibar, which later the same year was renamed the United Republic of Tanzania.
In 1996 government offices were transferred from Dar es Salaam to Dodoma, making Dodoma the country's political capital. Dar es Salaam remains the principal commercial city.

History

What is now Tanzania was a colony and part of Germany from the 1880s to 1919. Under the League of Nations, the area became a British Mandate from 1919 to 1961. It served as a military outpost during World War II and provided financial help as well as munitions. Julius Nyerere became Minister of British-administered Tanganyika in 1960 and continued as Prime Minister when Tanganyika became independent in 1961. Tanganyika and neighboring Zanzibar, which had become independent in 1963, merged to form the nation of Tanzania on April 26, 1964. One-party rule came to an end in 1995 with the first democratic elections held in the country since the 1970s.

Environment

Tanzania has considerable land area of wildlife habitat, including much of the Serengeti plain, where the white-bearded wildebeest (Connochaetes taurinus mearnsi) and other bovids participate in a large scale annual migration. Up to 250,000 wildebeest perish each year in the long and arduous movement to find forage in the dry season. Tanzania is also home to 130 amphibian and over 275 reptile species, many of them strictly endemic and included in the IUCN Red lists of different countries. Tanzania has developed a Biodiversity Action Plan to address species conservation.

About the Trip and what i'm to do

Hey Guys,

Glad you took the time to come and read about what I am doing this summer. For the last two years I took part in a programme called Development Perspectives. It is a Youth Work Ireland Louth programme and funded by them and Irish Aid. Visit www.developmentperspectives.ie for more info! So last year the programme was in a small village in northern Tanzania called Mwanga. We were involved in various programmes such as HIV/Aids prevention, Womens groups, environmental conservation, and building a basketball court for the local community. Anyone who knows me knows that basketball is a huge part of my life and that being involved in building this court was one of the greatest moments of my life. The sear excitement of building a basketball court was excilerating never mind doing it for a local community that would use it all the time!

So I got the idea at the end of the programme that I could come back the following year a run a small basketball camp for the local kids. Through some planning and help from Bobby and Ben Mongi (Uvikuta, Tanzania) thing began to take shape and now Paddy O'Connor has come on board and we are going to run a sports camp for three weeks. More info will be available soon so wait for the updates.

Also if anyone is interested in joining the programme I was involved in the last two years check out our website. www.developmentperspectives.ie
It is a life chancing experience in my opinion!!