Just got my specific volunteer assignment and I got my 1st choice--working toward women's empowerment initiatives. I'll be volunteering at an organization called Bawodene, which is in the town of Bagamoyo (it's on the coast of the Indian Ocean, above Dar Es Salaam).The organization I'm volunteering through has been placing volunteers in this town since last summer, I believe. There will also be ~19 other volunteers from the U.S., Canada and Australia living in the house who will have other assignments (i.e. working in an elementary school, hospital, etc, etc).
Bawodene was founded by six Tanzanian women to help women and out-of-school girls utilize their skills to generate income. Some of the skills of the women in the community are making batiks, mats, bedsheets, handcrafts, embroidery, sculpturing, drying fish, processing cashew nuts, and tailoring. Bawodene is implementing a micro-credit lending project to fund these activities. (I started reading Banker to the Poor: Micro-Lending and the Battle Against World Poverty which explains micro-credit lending and where the idea came from... it's been really helpful.) The ultimate goal is to help women in this community utilize the resources in their community to become self-employed and ultimately self-sufficient.
Bawodene needs assistance with the daily functions of the office, i.e. managing meetings, learning computer skills, and helping to identify (more) efficient ways of doing things. Me and another young woman from Houston will start on the same day and will be placed at this site together. We'll also teach basic English and help with marketing, finance, management, and grant writing.
...count-down: 2-weeks!
