Promoting life lessons through exploring talents

It was Saturday morning when secondary school students from Dar es Salaam and Coastal regions gathered at the Nkurumah Hall, University of Dar es Salaam to witness the launching of this year’s Uwezo Award project. Together with their teachers, students were filled with enthusiasm as they waited to hear what this year competition had in store for them.

This is a project which is run in form of competition in secondary schools from Form One up to Form Six. It aimed at giving students a forum to explore their talents, potential and ability through Community Change Projects as part of their learning process while they measure up their talents with other schools. In this project, students come up with their own creative projects that in the end will bring positive changes within their surrounding community.

Mwanaamina Mkunga, a Form Two student from Nyumbu Secondary School, Kibaha was one among the students who attended the event. She couldn’t hide her joy, “I am so happy to be here today, this is my first time to participate. It is a good opportunity for us to have a place where we can unleash our hidden talents. I believe through this we will learn a lot from each other,” says Mwanaamina.

Suzan Singwai, a first year student at the University of Dar es Salaam took part in Uwezo project while she was at Zanaki Girl’s Secondary School. Their project by then was to renovate their school dispensary including buying the material needed.

“We used our talents and organised an event and those who came to see the show paid some money and we used the money to renovate our school dispensary.”

“What really helped us to accomplish it was our commitment towards what we wanted and never gave up. We trusted ourselves that we will be able to do it and we did it. Through this project I have leant a lot of things one of them is leadership, also I have learnt that my thoughts or idea are very important and that I shouldn’t be afraid to speak my thoughts and above all the project has taught me to be confident in everything that I do,” she proudly explains.

She went further saying she learnt the importance of team work and how good things can turn up when people work together than working individually and how responsible she is to the community surrounding her. She advices students to take charge of their lives and use their time wisely while in school and outside the school.

Students had an opportunity not only to exchange ideas from one another but they also had an opportunity to receive inspirational talk from various speakers and leaders who were also present.

Among them was Alvaro Rodriguez, UN Resident Coordinator and UNDP Resident Representative in Tanzania who says youth don’t need to wait for someone or the government to make things happen for them so as they can achieve their dreams instead they need to be active and work hard to make that happen.

“I am not saying accomplishing a project can be something easy to do but we all need to try our best so as to take control of our lives. Both young men and women out there need to understand that the Sustainable Development Goals are there for them and they need to take action and promote those goals for their benefits as they protect environment and end poverty,” says the UN Representative.

According to him we all have small but important contribution to make in our communities, and we must empower ourselves than sit and wait for someone to come and give us the job, the idea or opportunity. He says the world has never been an easy place for young people giving example of himself and how it took him many year to be where he is today.

“If you have the right attitude then you will have power to achieve something good for yourself especially for young girls and women because no country can develop if women are not given equal opportunities as men. It is important for women not to feel inferior in their mind,” said the diplomat adding that, “When we come together with different skills, right attitude and mindset, then we become strong.

One person cannot be good in everything as one can have a certain set of skills and so the other one including arts, mathematics or even sports. Students in particular needs to come together in small or big groups like what this project is trying to, this can be a powerful way to a make huge and positive impact in their lives,” he advised.

On his part, Jumanne Mtambalike , Chief executive officer of Sahara Ventures who is also an inspirational speaker says it’s okay to fail however its unfortunate that we have been prepared not to fail in our lives ,a child who fails is seen as a disgrace to the family but I believe in failing fast, failing cheaply and failing reasonably.

“When you fail, it’s an opportunity to learn something new that can take you far in life in the future and that is what it means to fail reasonably,” he says.

Explaining why such a project is important for students, Noelle Mahuvi , Project Coordinator at Great Hope Foundation says it gives students an opportunity to realize their talents and abilities particular the ones that cant directly be seen in classroom.

“We give them a room to learn about leadership both how to lead others and leading themselves. Also this project enables them to learn how to be responsible citizen including finding better ways to solve challenges that they are capable of within their community,” she says.

According to Noelle, this year they have in addition, put in focus the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s) whereas they help students understand that their initiatives in this project contributes in achieving such goal which is SDG goal number four which is quality education aim to ensure inclusive and quality education for all and promote lifelong learning.

“This project is a hundred percent done by students, as it gives them a room to be listened and given a chance to work on their ideas as they alone come up with their own project ideas and accomplish them. What we do is we recognised their efforts and awards them.”

“For instance we had Wailes secondary school where by students who participated built a school wall because their school had a high rate of student’s absenteeism, they got the money through fund raising and the vegetable farming project. To us this is such a biggest and surprisingly achievement,’ she proudly explains.

She says this is a third time for this project to be done since it started 2016 with participation of 20 school from Dar es Salaam by then. In 2017 the project was able to reach out to 50 secondary schools from Dar es Salaam however this year it has expanded further to the nearby region including Morogoro and coast and reach up to 100 schools.