The project began some three years ago, when a small group from the UK worked in the area with Habitat for Humanity to build three decent homes in partnership with three low-income families. Plans for an eventual number of 300 families on the site prompted community leaders to ask if there could be some assistance to build a primary school as the nearest local school was quite a distance away and already somewhat overcrowded with up to 160 children in some classes!

Eight of the original team of twelve volunteers were able to commit to return and worked hard over the next three years to raise funds and plan the school build.

A new charity, AZAR (meaning ‘helper’) was set up to facilitate the process and the group arranged many events to raise awareness and recruit new members to come and help with the build. The climax of the project was an amazing team of 32 who travelled to Tanzania in August 2006 and completed the first eight classrooms of the school and also three more houses in partnership with Habitat for Humanity.

Unskilled but supervised volunteers dug pit latrines, laid block, mixed cement, plastered walls and raised roofs.

They connected with the local community in a way that no ordinary tourist ever could; living and working alongside them, swapping stories of families and lives at home, singing songs and sharing lives.

In their leisure time the teams visited other local schools, orphanages and an HIV/Aids mission and research centre. They also had some time for excursions to local rural communities and finished with some quality leisure time on the beautiful island of Zanzibar at the end of all their hard work. There were grand celebrations on the site too at the end of the build, accompanied by drumming, dancing and feasting.