On Saturday evening, we were able to attend "Tonight for Tanzania." The event was organized by Charities and people in the Ottawa-Tanzanian community. It was a great opportunity to hear the thoughts and experiences for from volunteers of different charitable organizations.

The organizations that were present included the World University Service of Canada (WUSC), Canada World Education Fund (CWEF), Canada-Africa Community Health Alliance (CACHA), Breath of Life (BoL) -- (including Helping Children Thrive (HCT),  Helping Babies Breath (HBB))-- and Black History Ottawa (BHO).
Some of the highlights of the speakers presentation were:

• Sarah Beanlands from BoL, spoke on the teams experiences during Summer2014. BoL focuses on medical improvements especially in child care. She brought up some valuable insights about challenges that charitable organizations face such as language barriers, differing teach styles and the lack of facilities. She mentioned that mothers may feel overwhealmed by the presence of many volunteers surrounding and focusing on them, therefore it is very important to prepare the participants and work with them on a more personal one-on-one basis. Furthermore, the involvement of the government and support from the local community will help the project be successful.
• Antionette Strazza from CACHA spoke about her experiences in Tanzania, and how she feels motivated to visit over and over again. She made a powerful statement about how the West needs to stop characterizing Africa as a place of despair, and rather should view it as a place of diversity where each person has their own unique experiences. She spoke about how working with people in Tanzania created positivity in the community and provided a learning experience for the volunteers; these acts of positivity allow us to create meaningful relationships with those in Tanzania.
• Charlotte Barthaza, a sponsored student from WUSC, spoke about her life experiences as a refugee in Tanzania. It was very valuable to hear her perspective about the Charity that helped her. She spoke about how she felt empowered to achieve her own goals; after she had been funded she had learned enough valuable skills to be able to start her own life without the help of a charity. She spoke about how a small amount of help can help change people's lives.

 In addition to hearing people speak about their experiences, we were able to see performances from the Shangaza ya African Ladies group, along with music from a Nancita Kapi (a pop musician from Congo) and poetry by Luoco St Fleur. There was also vendors from the Ottawa-Tanzanian community selling goods such as textiles, jewellery and honey. Finally we had the chance to try traditional Tanzanian food such as ugali, and cassava leaves.

Why This is Important:

It was a fun event and a great primer for our trip.It was fantastic to hear about Tanzania from people who have visited and lived there. Hearing their perspectives was a great source of primary research for our project.

Last night we had the opportunity to attend Tonight for Tanzania with a few of the students from engineering and business. We got to try ugali, cassava leaves, and some other foods from Tanzania while we saw some dance, poetry, and a few presentations from the various organizations that were present. The proceeds from the night were going towards CWEF which provides education for kids who cannot afford to go to school. Students from Algonquin who had worked with Tembo and other organizations to provide education on early childhood care did a presentation on their journey. Afterwards a few of us had a chance to talk to them and gain some insights for the trip. This event inspired and excited me for our upcoming trip, I'm looking forward to what we can do working alongside the Tanzanians!

The Maasai have benefited from tourism, as it has allowed them to develop businesses from selling beads, masks, carvings and other hand made goods to tourists. They also perform ceremonies for a tourist audience, and it has been suggested the tourism is actually helping to preserve cultural traditions by rejuvenating old customs and encouraging the Maasai to continue and maintain current customs without changing the fundamentals of the culture (African Crafts Market, n.d.).

Maasai women have recently began playing a primary role in this type of business (the selling of beads and crafted goods). One business organization called "Merrueshi Women's Cooperative" was   established by a small group of Maasai women in Merrueshi Village, and states it's mission as "To empower ourselves and improve our community through income generating activities such as handmade crafts, folklore, and livestock production". Their goal is to alleviate poverty and similar socio-economic cultural challenges, while encouraging women to start their own businesses, promoting the investment in and empowerment of women, supporting the education of girls and supporting women's health (Merrueshi Women's Cooperative, n.d.).

In addition to profit from the tourism industry, the main form of income in Longido is livestock and agriculture. Livestock is not a dependable source of income, however, as the y are susceptible to disease due to lack of vaccination, and require a large amount of water to maintain. Droughts can have a devastating impact on livestock population. Additionally, livestock products and other natural resources do not provide substantial income (Bowen et. al., 2011). There exists a need for business creation (micro enterprises) that makes use of resources that they have access to, but are not entirely dependent on water, or have a sustainable water collection method integrated into them.

Why This is Important:

Micro-Enterprising has become a popular idea to integrate into designs . If we as designers plan to incorporate a business aspect into our designs, we must first understand how the market and economy works within Longido. By understanding which enterprises and businesses are working well already, we can use them as launching points that will lead us to viable solutions and businesses for the cultural context.


Sources:

African Crafts Market (n.d.). Maasai People Traditions & Culture. Retrieved September 19, 2014, from http://www.africancraftsmarket.com/Maasai_people.htm

Merrueshi Women's Cooperative. (n.d.). Retrieved September 19, 2014, from http://www.maasaicamp.com/women.html 

Bowen, P., Simons, C., Hillyard, J., Hartwig, K., Langford, S., Harvey, M., & James, S. (2011). The Whole Village Project. Retrieved September 26, 2014.

“The use of participatory design is often advocated when developing new solutions for economically or socially marginalised people in developing countries. It is argued that through including users in the design process designers can understand their needs better” 

This article examines participatory design as a tool that can allow designers to work with the users of a specific context to better understand their needs and looks specifically at the prosthetics design project in Cambodia. This method views the end users as experts of their own lives and believes that they should be able to impact decisions made about their lives. The psychological empowerment of the user is key to successfully conducting participatory design. The designers must be well informed of the situation; they must research and be knowledgeable about the user as well as culture and traditions. Designers have a responsibility to then share their knowledge and skills in a useful manner to empower the users. Furthermore, they must create an environment in which user ability is raised and they can “communicate their own ideas and to engage in design processes.”
This process can be made difficult for several reasons. 

Four main issues were identified: Human aspects; Social, cultural, and religious aspects; Financial aspects and project timeframe; and Organizational aspects. Human aspects can be related to issues with human resources, and negotiating. For example, In a participatory healthcare design project between Tanzania and Sweden, there was a lack of human resources in Tanzania to participate; supporting the workers in Tanzania was made into a priority and designers had to be flexible in their schedules. It is key to adapt participation methods to suit the local environment and users. Social, cultural, and religious aspects arise in many different ways; for example during the project with Cambodia the designers had to be sure to get the “oldest and most respected” prosthetist on board with the project since the culture has a strong social hierarchy with strong respect for elders. It is very important to take cultural differences into consideration and understand how different power structures may impact design methodologies. Designers must consider the ethics of design workshops: “Power structures and customs for interaction with children and concepts about their place in society can make it difficult for both children and adults to cooperate as equal design partners. To put them together in a workshop without preparing them is not ethical.”
 
Financial aspects pertain to available funding, and may impact whether or not participants can be given monetary rewards. Monetary rewards are not always required to ensure participation; in Cambodia the budget was small and users participated willingly out of a genuine interest. The project timeframe will determine how many workshops can be conducted and consequently how deep participation can go.
 
The article notes that these types of partnerships are not always the most beneficial and may actually present more drawbacks than positives. If the budget and timeframe is not available, if willing participants cannot be found, or if cultural conflicts cannot be resolved, other solutions may be pursued. 

Why This is Important:

As designers in a foreign country, it is highly important that we employ participatory design methods and include the users in as many parts of our design process as possible. Culture exchange and the sharing of knowledge are vital for allowing us to make wise decisions about our designs, and empowering the users in Longido to make decisions about these designs that may impact their lives. Furthermore, by including the end users in the design process, we can create designs that they understand and can maintain and reproduce themselves.


Hussain, S., Sanders, E. B. N., & Steinert, M. (2012). Participatory design with marginalized people in developing countries: Challenges and opportunities experienced in a field study in Cambodia.International Journal of Design, 6(2), 91-109.

• Karatu is a 2 hour drive from Longido
• There is no municipal waste collection in Karatu, so they collect all the garbage in a pile and burn it, which sometimes causes a giant smoke to cover the town
• The people don't have a lot so they cannot burn a lot so it really isn't that bad 
• Not an academic source, but it's a blog written by someone who is living there right now 

       Garbage Day in Karatu. (2011, June 20). Experience Rural Tanzania CPAR U of M Students. Retrieved September 22, 2014, from http://experienceruraltanzania.wordpress.com/2011/06/20/garbage-day-in-karatu/ 

Indoor Air Pollution

• Biomass in the form of dung, wood, and crop residues is burned in 2/5 homes
• Most housing at temperate latitudes has relatively low air exchange rates
• Incomplete combustion produces byproducts that are harmful, most of which are released into living spaces and due to low air exchange rates they stay in the room for lengthy periods of time
• This can lead to respiratory disease in children under the age of 5