2018_09_14_DCHO_reportaje_africa_tantaka

Claudia Ventura and Ángel Martos boarded the plane without knowing what awaited them in Africa. Claudia, a 2nd year law student, was traveling to Tanzania, while Ángel, a 2nd year law student, was going to Ivory Coast. International Officewas going to Côte d'Ivoire. For a month, they would work on international cooperation projects.

They had learned about the activity through Tantaka, the solidarity time bank of the University of Navarra, and had been thinking about it for months. They found, they say, more than they expected: daily challenges, continuous learning, a new culture and the infinite affection of the children, parents and professionals they met in the destination city.

Tanzania

Claudia Ventura, a 2nd year law student, arrived in Nambala, a small town in Arusha, Tanzania. At high school, "the women who worked there were always smiling, as if every day was the happiest day of their lives, despite having personal lives that were much harder than we could imagine," she recalls.

Claudia worked in different tasks, whenever she had the opportunity: cooking, cleaning or promoting hygiene among the children at high school, teaching the teachers basic aspects of computers and internet, preparing games, dances and didactic activities for a summer camp that was held in the afternoons...Tasks that she performed together with other colleagues from Schools of Law, Economics and the School of Engineers, who were also at the Eloni Center, where more than forty children have the opportunity to access the system educational.

As Tantaka points out, in Tanzania, Education is not free between the ages of one year and six years, and there are families with financial difficulties who cannot provide their children with Education, adequate food or medical care.

A teacher at the center during one of the classes with the children PHOTO: Cedida

"We have learned and they have helped us much more than the other way around. Going abroad allows us to develop the values that the University transmits to us throughout our careers. This experience multiplies everything, makes you value and, at final, be a better person," he says.

Despite the difficult moments, "when you rethink everything and face everyday situations that we are not used to", the conflicts "become insignificant when you are surrounded by wonderful people who give you all their love as soon as they meet you. I think it is the best decision I have made and hopefully in a couple of years we can come back and see the new high school finished and working".

During their stay, the volunteers helped to build a new school building PHOTO: Cedida

 

Ivory Coast

Ángel Martos, a 2nd year student of International Office, carried out the volunteer activities in Ivory Coast together with his brother, Baltasar Martos, a 4th year student of RRII, and students of the School of Nursing. They worked at the WALÉ Medical-Social Center, a primary health care facility that provides health services to people of limited economic resources in Yamoussoukro. "It is an experience you have to live at least once in your life. We made the most of the opportunity to live with the Ivorians, from whom we learned an infinite number of things. It is true that you take away much more than you contribute in all aspects: both labor and social", says Ángel Martos, who worked at advisory service, management of data or assessment of weight, height and BMI of the children in the villages.

Volunteers at the WALÉ Medical-Social Center PHOTO: Cedida

They advised, for example, to promote "economic empowerment of HIV-positive women in the villages of the area, whose children usually suffered from malnutrition". An experience that, she explains, complements "incredibly and in many different ways" the training of the Degree they are studying, because, among others, "the management of projects and the administration of NGOs are elements core topic in the International Office".

The projects in Tanzania and Côte d'Ivoire, promoted by Tantaka, are committed to the Sustainable development Goals of the diary 2030 set by the UN. Among them, they address those concerning health and well-being, Education quality, gender equality, clean water and sanitation, work decent and economic growth and partnerships to achieve the goals.

Baltasar and Angel Martos during their stay in Ivory Coast PHOTO: Cedida

The center supported the economic empowerment of women in the villages of the area PHOTO: Cedida