A Texan in Tanzania

Blaze Currie, the Leadership Development Coordinator for the Texas FFA Association, is representing the National FFA Organization at the African 4-H leadership conference in Tanga, Tanzania. Blaze’s participation is funded by a generous gift from The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to encourage collaboration between national FFA and the National 4-H Council. As part of Blaze’s participation, he is a member of the 4-H team that is gathering information about youth development and engagement in agricultural programs. He will also do some practical field visits to small holder farms in the bush country. National FFA is grateful to Tom Maynard, and the Texas FFA, for making Blaze available for this important project.

Below are a few pictures Blaze wanted to share:

Picture 1

Me with Lawrence of Nigeria and "Boat" of Ghana.

Picture 2

This is a picture of a public restroom or "toilet" at the caves that we visited near Tanga.

This wasn't a bad toilet...and is pretty typical. There was no running water.

Picture 3

This picture was taken at a village near Tanga.This is an 11-year-old girl named Faith. She has a small poultry project set up by Tanzania 4-H. She started with five chickens and built a shed for them. She has 14 chickens now. She will start selling chickens when she gets up to about 20 or 30 chickens. She will get about 8,000 Tanzanian Shillings for one chicken, or about U.S. $5.30 per chicken. She is in the fifth grade and is the oldest sibling. Her 4-H club meets once a month, and she gets help from her school teacher.

Picture 4

This is just one more picture that I took near the village in Tanga. This village was in a poor area, but they did have some running water and food.

Blaze