Teaching Seminar at the Msamaria Centre for Street Children

After finishing at the centre, Ramy, Aliya and I were waiting for our ride and decided to have a photo-op. This is me on the side of the road with a daladala in the back, and partial views of Mt Kilimanjaro (only the edge of it).

All of the kids from our class holding their certificate of completion.

This is a 13 year old boy named Julius. He wants to be doctor when he grows up, so he had lots of questions for us, and about life in Canada.

One of the kids at the centre playing on the swings.

Ramy, Aliya and I sitting at the front of our class with our candy.

Aliya and I enjoying some lollipops (or pipi in swahili) that we brought for the kids.

Dialo speaking to some of the children.

For the past two days, Ramy, Aliya and I have been involved with a teaching seminar at the Msamaria Centre for Street Children with a man named Dialo. Dialo created a youth mentorship program here in Moshi, called the Kilimanjaro Fun Club, in association with the Pamoja Tuneweza Women's Centre. This teaching session involved discussing things such as leadership and life skills, and our job was to teach the kids about general health topics. These topics included puberty, smoking, nutrition, exercise, and HIV/AIDS. The kids already knew some of the information that we presented (as some of it was quite basic), but some of the other topics we talked about they did not know. This created a great opportunity for teaching them something new. For instance, the kids thought that cigarettes only contained nicotine, and not thousands of other chemicals, many of which are toxic to our bodies. They also were unaware of many things related to HIV/AIDS, so we tried our best to teach them this information in a clear way. At times it was difficult to get our point across (as we were speaking English and Dialo translated to Swahili for us), but all in all, I think we did the best we could. I hope at least some of the kids found it useful!