Mwanza – my home away from home

I have been now in Mwanza for soon three months and I can honestly say it has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my short life. Not only is the city beautiful, but the people I have had the pleasure of working with have been amazing.

For my training I am helping primary schools build composts from biowaste from a local market in order to get humus, which is itself an organic fertilizer. Originally I was assigned three primary schools (the 3 new schools that have joined the Tampere-Mwanza Project); Mirongo, Mabatini and Iseni, but I will go through as many schools as possible, because I will do my entire required training period (six months) here in Mwanza and thus I will have more time to visit more schools.

Paper recycling in Mirongo School

Before building the actual compost, I teach the children a little bit of theory behind the compost, so that they understand what it is we are doing and why. Each school has an environmental group of about 30 – 50 children whom I teach for roughly two weeks before we make the compost. I start with teaching the children the importance of waste separation, where we discuss why having a lot of mixed waste is harmful for the environment, how recycling the recyclable materials helps reduce waste and how we can reduce waste and make fertilizer from separating and composting biowaste. I have also held a lesson in the first three schools where the children recycled old newspapers to make new paper. In the beginning this was rather chaotic, as you are dealing with paper tearing, water and children. However it always works out well and the kids loved it and are always amazed how well the new paper turns out.

Ready paper made from recycled material!

Paper recylcing in Iseni School

Enthusiast kids learning the paper making techniques

I also teach the kids a little bit about Finland and show them pictures from my computer, which they also love. This is a bit challenging to pull at times just because not every classroom in the schools has electricity, and at times we have had to be creative and go to other locations were I could plug in my laptop to show them photos (the battery life on my laptop is non – existant!) of Finland. They always love the photos and ooh and aah when they see photos of mid-winter Finland (“look at all that ice [snow]!”) and of mid-Summer sun. When I ask the kids of their impression of Finland they same thing: it looks beautiful and I would like to live there.

For Mabatini and Iseni I have kept small exams about composting, just to make the kids think about it one more time before actually building the compost. I don’t tell the children the previous day that we will have an exam. Instead, I divide them into small groups, place them outside and tell them to study together for the exam. Usually they do very well; the children here are so bright it is scary.

I only thought about having an exam when I was in my second school (Mabatini), however I’m confident that the information has stayed with the Mirongo environment group, for the last time I visited they told me that they themselves dig in and mix the compost to see the changes and are looking forward for the humus to be ready. We built the compost in Mirongo in early April and it is already starting to look and smell like humus; the mostly citrus fruits that we put into the pit were now unrecognizable beautiful dark brown soil.

Building a compost in Mabatini for the first time - a student covering the biowaste with dry leaves

The Environmental group of Mabatini School posing next to the newly made compost - Monica Mjema on the right in blue shirt

We will use the humus generated for the beautification of the school grounds. The schools I have been to are rather barren and lack in green spaces. Many of the schools also lack fences to separate school grounds. Throughout my stay in Mwanza I will be helping the schools plant “green fences” – trees and bushes – along the school perimeter to improve security.

The headmasters of the schools as well as my supervisor Amin (the Project Coordinator) also agreed that it would be a good idea to set up a little farm in each project school, in which they will use this humus. Parents of the children as well as local farmers could then visit these schools to see how this organic fertilizer is working well and even better than the industrial ones which are popular here. The schools could thus be examples to the farmers of how they could produce better crops using their self-made fertilizer as well as improve their waste management. 

I have so far been to these three schools and I am so happy how enthusiastic the children as well as the teachers are in this project. I am looking forward for the next three months here, I know we will achieve a lot before I head back home!

Text and pictures: Monica Mjema (Environmental Engineering student from TAMK, Tampere and trainee for the Tampere-Mwanza Co-operation Project for 6 months)