Thursday, June 18, 2009

Elerai Village Council

Today, Baba, Emanueli, and Irene took me to the Elerai office. Elerai is the area in which I live and Sakina is located within Elerai. Within Sakina, there are many streets on which many people live. The Maturo household is located on Kabida ya Maziwa.

I wanted to meet some key stakeholders in the community so that they were aware of what we would be doing over the next two months. They will also be an integral part in the health assessment of the community. Baba knows everyone, so he introduced me. I met the ward executive officer and the village chairman. They both were really nice and told me they would help in any way possible with Sustain Foundation’s work this summer. The village government breakdown is as follows: chancellor (elected), ward executive officer (works with chancellor but is appt by govt), village chairman (elected), village executive officer (works with village chairman but is appt by govt), street chairman (elected), Ten sill leader (elected and is in charge of a small group of households).

Then we went took the daladala, which are small vans that serve as the bus system, into town. We first stopped at the Arusha Municipal Center and met with some officials who explained the NGO registration process. It’s a little complicated and may take a little while to become officially registered, so it’s a good thing the village leaders are supportive.

It was fun to help Emanueli and Irene start using their business cards at every office we visited!

Winston and I took a walk today and had a really fun conversation in a mixture of Spanish, English, and Swahili.

Vocab word of the day:
Picha - picture

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