Two Pitt students co-found orphange in Tanzania

Jack lives in a one-room shack with his mother and four siblings. At 6 years, he is the oldest… Jack lives in a one-room shack with his mother and four siblings. At 6 years, he is the oldest of the children. His father is often absent, only returning home every nine or 10 months.

Uneducated and unable to speak any language other than the tribal language of Masai, Jack’s mother cannot find work. She gets food wherever she can to support her family. At night, the six share one bed.

Months after her visit to Tanzania, Pitt student Pooja Patel still beams as she talks about Jack.

“Jack was one of my favorite kids. He was just incredibly bright,” she said.

Jack is a student at Green Hope, the orphanage founded by Patel and fellow Pitt sophomore Robert Snyder last June in Olgilai Village, Tanzania. The orphanage teaches reading and arithmetic to children like Jack from poor families in the village. The students learn English and Swahili — Tanzania’s official languages.

In addition to teaching, the school provides meals to its 22 students, who range in age from 2 to 6 years.

In mid-May, Snyder and Patel began volunteering at Lasting Bless, an orphanage on the outskirts of Arusha, a regional capital in Northeast Tanzania. Snyder said he found out about the orphanage through International Volunteer Headquarters, an organization that pairs volunteers around the world with nonprofit projects in developing nations.

At Lasting Bless, Snyder, who majors in philosophy, political science and economics, and Patel, a political science and molecular biology major, met Herieth Jacobs. Jacobs was the only teacher at the orphanage with a formal education.

Snyder and Patel were struck by the teacher’s energy and the performance level of her students. The children were performing at levels comparable to those of students in the same grade level in the United States.

This was no small achievement, Snyder said. According to the CIA World Factbook, the nationwide literacy rate is almost 70 percent; yet among the poor in Tanzania and in villages like Olgilai, the rate is lower.

“Unlike the other teachers, not only did she make her children excel, she never once hit or abused them,” Snyder said. He said that teachers in Tanzania often used corporal punishment.

He said that he included an article in the contract for Green Hope teachers that forbids them from striking students.

The idea for Green Hope came about when Jacobs, 29, told Snyder and Patel of her dream to open her own orphanage. The team of three found the perfect location in Olgilai, where Jacobs lives with her husband and three young children.

A man named Babu (“grandfather”) sold Snyder land with a building on it. Babu spoke only a tribal dialect, and Jacobs’ grandmother interpreted for them. Babu signed the land contract while holding the pen with both hands.

Green Hope’s classes began Sept. 5, after the three fixed up the property. Private donors currently fund the school, though Snyder and Patel’s goal is to eventually have the school become self-sustaining. Within the next few years, they expect that the teachers in Olgilai will be able to manage the donations coming in and the operations of the school.

Green Hope received full nonprofit status under the provisions of Pennsylvania Nonprofit Corporation Law on Tuesday, enabling it to raise funds more effectively.

“This school was [Jacobs’] dream. We only helped make it a reality,” Snyder said.

Patel noted that she and Snyder had to adjust to abrupt changes when they arrived in Arusha.

“It’s a long way from a North Carolina golf course,” she said, referring to how the trip must have seemed for Snyder, who grew up in Raleigh.

Snyder said he had to learn how to wash laundry by hand and take showers from buckets. Traveling the 15 miles between the village of Olgilai and the more urbanized Arusha usually took an hour and a half on dirt roads that cut through forest.

One day, Jacobs’ husband taught Snyder how to ride his motorcycle so he could explore on his own.

“I drove through this little tiny village, and half the people there had never seen a white person, and the other half had never seen a motorcycle,” he said. “It blew their mind.”

Snyder and Patel both said that they miss their experiences in Tanzania and care deeply about improving the prospects for children in Tanzania’s lower class.

“Living among and working to help orphans and street children opens one’s eyes in a way I’m not sure I can put into words,” Snyder said.

Information about the Green Hope Orphanage and how to donate to the nonprofit can be found at www.thegreenhopeorphanage.org.