BECATravels: Tumaini Junior School

Tuesday, June 21, 2016

Tumaini Junior School

It is so good to be back at Tumaini Junior School! This is the school where Brian Favorite, the Production Coordinator on this trip, four BECA students and I spent almost a month in 2013. What an exceptional school this is! The school began with 17 students in the living room of Mr. Modest Bayo’s home in Karatu in 2004. It now has more than 900 students from preschool through Form 7 (British system – about the end of middle school), 44 teachers, and four dormitories. (The dorms have bunk beds, and many of them are triple deckers!)

Kamran (the producer on the 2016 Tumaini video), Nick, Brian and I went over to the school on Sunday afternoon so that Kamran and Nick could get a sense of the school before production began on Monday, and so that Brian and I wouldn’t have to wait a second longer to go back to Tumaini. The school has added a fourth floor since we were here, and that floor contains both a computer laboratory and a library.

A teacher named Mr. Jimmy runs the computer lab. He remembered us and knew we were coming because Brian has kept up with him on Facebook. The computer lab has both Dell laptops and Google Chrome Books – probably about 40 computers. It has been set up so children can use computers for writing, email and Khan Academy, but not for social media.

The library is a large room with many books. (OF COURSE, it could use more!) Apparently, an elementary school in the U.S. closed and the school donated its books to Tumaini. Then came the problem of shipping all of those books from the U.S. to Karatu. Someone affiliated with Pepsico was sending a shipment to Dar Es Salaam anyway, and he sent the books along, and then transported them to Karatu by truck from the port. Shelves have been built, and the library has become a welcoming place, with rugs, comfortable chairs, and more “serious” tables and chairs for schoolwork.

On Sunday afternoon, a large group of children was playing sports in the school yard. (Keep in mind that about 300 children board at the school.) Another group was watching a movie. The youngest children were taking naps when we arrived. We reacquainted ourselves with some of the teachers, including Mr. Jimmy, and Madame Christine, who is in charge of the youngest children. What a delight!

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BECA International Video Project

The BECA International Video Project began in 2001 when Dr. Betsy Blosser and then BECA graduate student Gabriela Martínez applied for a grant jointly offered by the San Francisco State Offices of International Programs and Community Service Learning. The purpose of the grant was to design and offer a service learning course that was international in nature. Blosser and Martínez proposed a class in which students would travel to Cusco, Peru, to produce PSAs for Huchuy Runa, an organization that works with street children in Cusco. Winning that grant led the two to offer a two-course sequence entitled, "Media and Community Service" in which students prepared for the trip during a class in the spring semester and traveled to Peru in June to produce the PSAs.

Since that time, the course has been offered 12 times, and students have traveled to Brazil, El Salvador, Ghana, Guatemala, India, Indonesia, Tanzania and Thailand, in addition to Peru. The title of the course has changed; it is now, "Electronic Media and Social Justice I & II." And students do two sets of productions: one, for a local, not-for-profit organization in the spring semester, and one for an NGO in the country they have studied in the summer.

In each case, it is important that students remember that they are "in service" to the respective organization. In part, this means that students produce the video(s) the organization wants or needs for its purposes. Students offer their media skills and, if requested, their advice, but the nature of the production is up to the organization. The organizations receive the videos free of charge, with the knowledge that they are receiving student-produced videos.

It is the intent of this project that students become exposed to social justice issues in the local Bay Area, where San Francisco State is located, and to social justice issues in the country to which they travel. In addition, they have the experience of practicing their craft in a low-resourced environment in the Global South. Usually, this is a transformational experience for the BECA students.