Thanks so much for all your amazing support so far.  You can now keep in touch, have your say and support us on Facebook.

The countdown has begun for the Kilimanjaro Half Marathon on the 26th of February.  I am training away-my guide to running marathons and half marathons suggests that three weeks before the event one tapers one training down-I seem to be doing the opposite in a bid to do my longest run of 15 km on Saturday and next week one run of 17/18km! I don't think my wonderful trainer understands that I am running to COMPLETE the race, I think he wants me to compete-he has obviously never run against Kenyans and Tanzanians!  Apparently our next stop is the Olympics.

I am running for a great cause and when the burn and exhaustion sets in I just have to keep reminding myself that I am running for a solar system for the Usevya community center that Nomad Trust is building in partnership with Rotary International , The Besom Foundation and Professors from UC Davis, California.  Usevya, in Western Tanzania, has a population of about 14,000 people.  It is a very poor area, with one primary school and one secondary school.  There are no books in the secondary school, only chalk black boards. Teachers are often not paid for three months at a time, and when they are they have to travel to the distant district capital to collect their wages.  Students often study in shifts (either 7am-11am or 11am-3pm); after classes are finished they have little if any incentive to study further-they just don't have the facilities.  This youth center will assist in serving a critical need for recreational and educational support to this Tanzanian community.  

There is currently no power in the village and solar is our only option for the Environmental Education Center in the Youth Center.  Initially we are hoping for a system to run a few evening light, DVD showings and funding permitting a set of laptops with internet connections.  Our quotations so far for a basic stand alone system without laptops start at $4,000 and with laptops goes up to $11,000.  It goes against what one reads about solar becoming increasingly available to people in the developing world.  So I am running for light. 

To contribute go to:   http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/LaliHeath.

Many thanks for all your help

Lali

Dear All

Here's the Nomad Trust Newsletter and wrap up of what we've been doing with all our projects to the end of 2011 - download the PDF here.

Cheers
Lali

Greystoke Camp in Mahale National Park is supporting a small business enterprise based at the Kalolwa Airstrip.  The Tongwe Trust lend out land to Pai who grows vegetables for the camp.  Greystoke buy Pai's vegetables at Arusha Market prices.  Nomad Trust supports this initiative by providing a water pump, pipes,  Foliar feed fertilizer, vegetable seeds and better farming practice training to Pai free of charge. 

Since Greystoke re-opened in June  for the new season the vegetable garden has made 817,460 Tsh in profit (at current exchange rates this amounts to over $500).  This is hugely exciting as the garden struggled to make a profit for a number of years.  Well done to Pai!

Trackers Stockholm www.trackers.se  have very generously donated USD 1200 to fund a primary teacher for Katumbi School, near Greystoke Mahale.  It is truely a gift that will keep giving-not only to the students but to the community as a whole.

A special thank you goes out to Peter Jonsson.  I am very excited to visit Mahale early next year to find a suitable teacher to join the school for 2012.

When the Gates family donated $16,000 to Ololosokwan Primary School for a small computer room and photocopier machines, it seemed like a pipe dream that the teachers would ever get the hang of using the laptops.  However the effect of their donation has had a huge impact on the school, as well as the surrounding community. 

We saw a huge desire from people in the village to learn not only how to use the laptops but to learn how to maintain them.  Nomad Trust used the ever patient Evans Shirima from AA computers to do the training at the school and  AA computers here in Arusha have taken the training they provide a step further.  Very kindly AA computers have taken on Gabriel-a teacher from Ololosokwan Primary School for his second course in computer maintenance.

The course is free for Gabriel as he will go back to the school and share his skills with the other teachers there.  The Nomad Trust is very grateful to AA computers for their support. 

Zulufa Rashidi, a girl from Katumbi village, Mahale is about to head to Kigoma at the weekend to start a 2 year  Teachers Training course.  I spoke to her yesterday and she is incredibly excited and thrilled to be able to further her education.  Zulufa is being sponsored to go to college by Linda and Ian Parsons from the UK.  We hope that she will enjoy her time there and ultimately come back to teach in Katumbi.

There is no secondary school in Katumbi, and the primary school currently has about 790 students in it with 6 government paid teachers.  It is hugely oversubscribed as children come from the surrounding villages and rural areas to study there.  The teachers have to travel to Kigoma-a 2 day boat trip one way-monthly to collect their wages which means that the school barely functions for about 10 days a month.

The opportunity for some one from the village, let alone a female, to go to college is incredible.  A big thank you to the Linda and Ian.

I wanted to thank a number of people who have very generously donated books to our new environmental library in Usevya:

Annette Lewis for contributing so much as well as sending books from Amazon, Toni and Quentin Heim, Suzanne and Joy Barnes, Melanie Gowans, Linda Broome, and Janine Kleerup.
Your support in getting our book collection started for the Environmental Library has been invaluable-THANK YOU ALL. 

If anyone would like to make a contribution to the environmental library or has any educational material they would like to donate please contact us at: Nomadtrust@nomad.co.tz