Testimonial

Sarah Hanus: My year with DONET had two main focal areas. When I first arrived, I could hardly speak any Swahili so I was mostly involved in PR work. I communicated with members, was responsible for the monthly newsletter and created an electronic database from the old paper-based system. (Sarah laughs.)

In the second half of the year, we started going out to the local schools to educate pupils about the environment. Under the weltwärts programme, volunteers are given financial support to implement small personal projects. My boss there wanted to do some educational work and came up with the idea of setting up environmental working groups in cooperation with the schools in Dodoma.

Sarah Hanus: We were able to implement the project at three schools in total, where we set up environmental task forces together with the staff there. Each group was made up of around 30 pupils and we would meet once a week to discuss environmentally relevant topics and implement practical projects, such as setting up a tree nursery.

Sarah Hanus: Dodoma is one of Tanzania's driest regions. Its tree population is already scarce and the few trees that are left are being cut down to make charcoal, the main source of energy used for cooking in Tanzanian homes. The locals are aware of the problem in principle. The idea is that for every tree that is felled, two new trees must be planted. But people don't always grasp the urgency of the situation and, in many cases, they have no other option.

Another aspect is the refuse collection – namely, there isn't any, at least not on a regular basis. It is therefore even more important to keep plastic waste, which is virtually non-biodegradable, down to an absolute minimum. The children understand these connections, so it is important to show them that small changes can make a big difference. For example, by not using a new plastic bag every time they go shopping.

But compared with a country such as Germany, the ecological damage caused by people in Tanzania is minimal. It often felt strange to me to be teaching the locals about protecting the environment when I come from a country that needs to do much more itself.

Sarah Hanus: As a white person in Tanzania you are a "Mzungu" – and when you walk through the streets you hear it all the time. It has its associations and stereotypes: mainly wealth and intelligence. When I explained to people that I was here as a volunteer, I was often asked if I was helping in a school. That often seems to be the case in Tanzania and it shapes their perception of white people. Beforehand, at home in Germany, I didn't realise how much I would stand out simply because of my skin colour.

Sarah Hanus: As soon as I got to know people better, it put their stereotypes into perspective and I had the feeling that they saw me as myself. But being reduced to your external appearance by strangers, in particular your skin colour, is of course difficult and doesn't feel good. I had the opportunity to discuss the issue with others, including Tanzanian locals, at our interim seminar. They were surprised and didn't really understand why we had a problem with it, saying that "Mzungu" was genuinely not an insult and, if anything, had positive connotations and should be seen as a compliment.

Sarah Hanus: I am sure that my colleagues, acquaintances and host family appreciated what I was doing, but I found public opinion difficult to gauge. People in Tanzania deal with criticism in a very different way to us and it's very rare to hear someone give their honest opinion. It's very unusual for us and something that you have to learn and accept with time. If you don't, it can very quickly lead to confrontation – like if you express your opinion to your boss too strongly.

Sarah Hanus: It depends on the programme and the sending organisation. The Deutsch-Tansanische Partnerschaft e.V. usually sends volunteers to live with the locals. I found my host family to be an important fixed point of reference and they really helped me to learn about and experience the Tanzanian way of life.

Sarah Hanus: My activities with DONET in particular had in reality very little to do with what I thought I would be doing. I expected the organisation and our projects to be much bigger and realise now that my expectations when I left for Tanzania were pretty unrealistic. Firstly, in respect of what a small Tanzanian organisation can achieve in just a year and, secondly, in respect of my contribution. Looking back, I realise that all I had was a school-leaving qualification, and no special skills or knowledge about the local conditions. That of course played a big role in the outcome of my assignment.
And because of their stereotypes, the locals often expected a great deal of me. It was important to me from the start to put these expectations into perspective: Just because I am white, it doesn't mean that I automatically have the education they assume and know what to do.

Sarah Hanus: Coming home was a bigger challenge than I thought and although I didn't experience a culture shock when I arrived in Tanzania, I did when I got back to Germany. At first, I found it difficult to talk about it to family and friends, because their preconceptions from the media had little to do with my actual experiences there.

Sarah Hanus: Yes. Once I'd got settled in, I took the time to give the people around me an authentic picture of my year and life in Tanzania. I showed them a lot of photos, told stories and purposely focussed on aspects that do not conform to the stereotypical German view of Africa. Yes, poverty, starvation and a limited water supply do exist in Tanzania – but that is only part of the bigger picture. There are also skyscrapers, universities and support for social causes.

Sarah Hanus: I have gained so much knowledge and learnt a lot about project management and how to set up, hold and moderate a workshop. My self-confidence has grown and I am much more confident in my abilities. I have become more reflective about a lot of things, and I have a much firmer and in some cases also critical stance on intercultural topics like racism and development cooperation than I did before going abroad.

Sarah Hanus: Development cooperation is a very complicated subject. In Tanzania, I saw things that were often kept hidden from outsiders. For example, local projects are financed mainly by funds from foreign organisations. Every project starts by obtaining financing. During my volunteer programme, I also completed financing applications for projects that only had very vague aims and measures at that stage. It makes it difficult to ensure that the money is put to the best use.

I feel that not enough project ideas come from the locals, but are instead implemented by outsiders – the organisations. If the locals are not behind a project, they are less likely to support it and get involved, which makes it difficult to achieve sustainable results both during a project and once it has finished.

Volunteer programmes and exchange programmes offer this opportunity. Funding is therefore equally important, as is targeted advertising of these kinds of programmes by the AGYI. I suspect that a lot of people just aren't aware of the opportunities out there – I myself only found out about the weltwärts volunteer programme from friends.

Pooling together the various existing initiatives also makes it easier for potential participants to put their plans into action: finding the right programme, submitting an application, and then ultimately benefiting from a unique experience in the foreign country.