Recent trip to Jambiani

Andrew, Pat, Janie and Janet are just back from a highly successful field trip to Zanzibar. We were delighted with the progress of our slimmed-down projects – particularly in the area of higher education where we give support to nearly 20 students from Jambiani currently studying in Stone Town and living in the new ZAP Boarding house. A large party of these ZAP students returned to the village to host their counterparts – 11 girls from Headington School, Oxford who came for a 10 day visit to study the local culture as part of their International Baccalaureate.  The visit was a great success, thoroughly enjoyed by all the young people involved and – we hope – established a template for a return in the future. The Headington girls, in addition to raising a wonderful sum of money for ZAP, also brought mountains of educational material, baby clothes and 11 laptops which were kindly donated by a supporter. They worked hard in several areas, including the nursery schools and evening classes in Mr Vuai’s Jambiani Community Academy. We anticipate publishing a full report on the Headington visit, with the girls’ reactions and impressions of life in Jambiani in due course on the ZAP website. (see below)

The Academy is now well established and is a hive of activity. As well as regular academic tuition for Jambiani Form IV pupils after hours and children’s classes at weekends, the Academy offers tuition in computers and business administration to everyone, including the ZAP ‘fundis’.  Our office is now based in the building, and a good internet connection ensures publicity for our work in the village amongst visitors and tourists.

ZAP trained nurse, Wadhifa, has at last been deployed to the Jambiani Clinic, to the delight of Dr Hamza. Indeed the moment of his arrival was captured by a film crew from Chapman University, California who came to make a documentary about ZAP’s work, including all our current projects (having been re-routed from Uganda at the last minute); Dr Hamza proved a natural in front of the camera, and we hope the finished film, aimed at world-wide publicity for ZAP, will be ready for distribution in the Autumn.

More detailed reports on these happenings, as well as updates on the Jambiani Fundi Workshop, Nursery Schools and Sewing Ladies will be in our Summer Newsletter which should be out in a few weeks’ time.  However, I am pleased to report that we had no major power outages during our trip although we gather that since we left it has been somewhat dodgy. 

In the meantime, it cannot be stated often enough how much the people of Jambiani are benefitting from the kindness of our supporters. I have been especially charged with a personal message of appreciation from ZAP students and fundis - your generosity is making a real and significant difference to their lives and their future prospects.  Thank you.

PLEASE NOTE! A new-look ZAP website is currently under construction, and should ‘go live’ next week. You will be notified by email and we hope you approve!

With best wishes from all the Trustees,

Janie Preece

P.S .Mr Pandu sends his salaams and regards to all his friends in the UK.  He was as energetic and enthusiastic as ever, and has now been joined on the ZAP Management team by the redoubtable Mr Vuai.