When water is more important than volleyball…

Our old SW junior kit has served us well over the years, but being used for only a few days each year, there was still plenty of life left in the four complete sets of kit (total: 50 team shirts and 50 pairs of shorts). Looking around for a second life solution, SW Juniors, Hannah and Millie Cuthbert arranged for us to donate the kit (plus other donated volleyball items) to the students at Lasso primary school in Tanzania, as part of their overseas summer project, their summary and full report below:

Thank you from the SWVA

We would like to thank South West Volleyball Association for donating their old junior kit and spare equipment (balls, training net) to take on our trip to Tanzania in June 2024. We spent a week at Lasso primary school which is an extremely remote part of Tanzania.

As the priority was to get access to running water to the school, we had a packed schedule of digging a pipeline and working in the school gardens and there was unfortunately no time to play volleyball! However, there was a formal ‘gift exchange’ ceremony at the end of our stay where we handed over the kit and equipment we had received from others, as well as a new outdoor net we had bought from the funds we raised prior to the trip.

The children and teachers were extremely grateful and knew about volleyball (even in this very rural part of Africa). We hope they will manage to have more time to play once they spend less time fetching water!

 

Volunteering at Lasso Primary School, Tanzania

In the summer of 2024, my sister and I spent 3 weeks in Tanzania as part of a True Adventure project. The first week was spent volunteering in Lasso primary school in the rural community of Kirua Vunjo Mashariki close to the city of Moshi. We worked with the charity Better Lives to build a water pipeline for the school. The children have had a few years of hardship because of the lack of water for the irrigation of their Grow-your-own-Breakfast (GOB) gardens. They were spending a lot of their time walking long steep distances for water. So, whilst we had prepared to spend time with the children teaching volleyball, giving access to clean water became our group’s top priority.

 

However, this didn’t mean that we didn’t spend lots of time with the kids as the children themselves were very involved in the project and were eager to interact with us even though their knowledge of English was very limited. Luckily, we were accompanied by Faith and Ali who were the group translators. Despite the language barrier, we were still able to communicate through song, dance, games and sport. The children enjoyed teaching us playground dances and games and laughing at our poor attempts at dancing.

 

With the volunteers from Better Lives, we also planted vegetables in the school gardens and banana trees which would provide food for school meals and created fertiliser and insect repellent using natural resources such as ginger and guava. The Better Lives project team were very keen to use our time wisely and had planned a jam-packed schedule.

I spoke to the True Adventure guide about finding time to teach some students some volleyball skills and about donating the equipment to the school. This was seen as a good idea as volleyball is becoming an increasingly popular sport in Tanzania and when speaking to the kids and teachers about my interest in volleyball, they had a good understanding of the sport even in such a rural community. However, whilst the project team tried to find time to incorporate some volleyball, it was not possible in the end. On the final day there was an opportunity to present the volleyball equipment along with other donations which was greatly appreciated by both the teachers and the students.

 

Whilst we didn’t have time to play volleyball or coach volleyball skills, it was clear that the school valued sport and physical education as the children often enjoyed playing football games in their lunch breaks. From this we could see that the students were not afraid to get involved in a game and we were able to see a competitive side to both the boys and girls.

We hope that the team managed to make a positive difference, however small, to this beautiful community and that they manage to put the equipment to good use and keep up their enthusiasm for sport. We are extremely grateful to South West Volleyball for donating the volleyball kit and equipment and giving us the chance to share our love for Volleyball with the Lasso students!

 

By Hannah Cuthbert and Millie Cuthbert (Royal Wootton Bassett VC)