From Mwanza City Council to Igoma School (First two days)

 Here I am, in Mwanza! I arrived on Sunday after a long and tiresome journey to a warm and friendly welcome in Mwanza! As all of you, who have visited Mwanza, know, the Mwanza airport is really tiny. It took me by surprise! The tiniest airport I have ever seen!

Mwanza City Council, Picture Ruusa Gawaza

Yesterday I had the opportunity of meeting both the Mwanza City Director as well as the Mayor. Both of them are relatively new in their posts and therefore it was a pleasure for me to bring them greetings from their sister city Tampere. The Mayor of Mwanza was also very keen to meet our newly elected Mayor in Tampere and enhance the co-operation further. All in all, both meetings were held in good spirit and hopefully they will strengthen the co-operation.

In the afternoon, I had the pleasure of taking part in the Mwanza Project Steering Team (what we call the PST) meeting. Some very important issues were raised and we managed to go through ideas and plans for the new project period. We agreed that on this project period, special attention will be paid to bringing out good and tangible results and impacts as well as improving monitoring and evaluation in both Mwanza and Tampere. Communication will be also improved between both PST’s as well as the coordinators.

Today the day started by a meeting with the Academic Officer and some teachers from project schools. We discussed the new project plan concerning guidance counselling and teacher exchange. I brought some ideas with be from our school co-operation sub group in Tampere and we managed to have a very good and thorough meeting. It was seen important that schools will emphasise monitoring and reporting which will assist in all good impacts getting thoroughly documented in the annual reports. I think all parties were satisfied with the results and plans.

Igoma Primary School, Picture Ruusa Gawaza

After the meeting I had the chance to see the lovely and lush Igoma Primary School. What a lovely environment that is! We had a good discussion and evaluation with the teachers and saw the impressive actions that they have taken in order to implement the guidance counselling action plans brought by the project. I was really happy to see the results of that activity! From the green yard and lush fruit gardens, I could clearly see, that the composting activity has been successful in Igoma.

All in all, I am so far very grateful for all the discussions I have had the opportunity to take part into. Many ideas have been developed and my head is full of new thoughts… I’m more and more convinced that the new project period will be a success!