Olethea modtog sidste år AL Sydbanks generøse rejselegat, der støtter NG-elevers drømme om at rejse ud i verden! Til årets dimission om cirka en måned vil endnu en elev få sig en glædelig overraskelse – og tilskud til en drømmerejse!
My Travel Grant Trip
Throughout my three years of IB at Nyborg Gymnasium, I thought of CAS projects often, and there was one service project that stuck with me, but I never managed to go through with it because of the high cost. I wanted to go to a library that offers Tanzanian teenagers or adults a free secondary education and help in any way I could. But it always seemed out of reach. Too big a project and wishful thinking.
However, about a year ago, I saw the offer of a Sydbank travel grant through Nyborg Gymnasium, and saw an opportunity to be able to help the Tanzanian library, but I knew I wouldn’t be the only one applying for it. I explained my hopeful plan and waited.
To my delight, the principal told me I was going to be the one to receive the grant. Sydbank was even kind enough to provide me with a suitcase!
I was finally able to afford the trip there, and it was an amazing experience. After around 14 hours of travel, I arrived in rural Tanzania, close to Arusha and started volunteering for Jifundishe. I was shocked to learn that Tanzanian students are taught in Swahili all throughout primary school, but when they get to secondary school, all of their subjects are suddenly taught as if their main language was English! Additionally, the programmes that Jifundishe offered condensed two grades into one. I was told that I would be most helpful if I could teach maths, and that’s what I did. However, I found that most students weren’t fluent enough in English to understand what I was saying, so trying to get them to learn Maths in an essentially foreign language was difficult!
My day consisted of waking up, trying to teach dynamic classes involving games, sitting with the students after class and having long conversations, eating traditional Tanzanian food cooked by the library’s wonderful cook and cleaner, spending time with two girls who were doing a study on Jifundishe’s free sewing school for girls and preparing my next lessons. After the first month, the two other girls left, unfortunately, so I was often alone and bored in the evenings. This got me into birding as I would sit outside and see the most beautiful and colourful birds pass by. I also started to go out a bit more, walking around the area, and I quickly learned to expand my comfort zone and improve my social skills.
Finally, on my last week of the close to three months I spent there I decided to go to Zanzibar and went scuba diving in Nungwi and Matemwe which was truly out of this world. I wish I had pictures of the fish, but those are slightly harder to take! I also met all kinds of people with incredible stories.
All in all, I had a wonderful time.
Thank you Sydbank!
Olethea Bell Lyons
