We're having a great afternoon and we hope you are too!

Why is today great? Because the project broke ground! Building materials have been delivered and work has started on this beautiful day in Pongwe. We will continue to post updates as the column bases are filled and the slab is created. 28 days until we fly to Tanzania!

If you have any questions or comments, we'd love to hear from you. Shoot us an email at puc.tanzania@gmail.com

Sincerely,

Team Tanzania Siri, Xoab, Arlene, Garrett, Sara and Rachel

Good evening all,

This Wednesday, March 9, at 4:30 central time we will be presenting our current status to the PUC Service Learning Advisory Board (SLAB) and you all are invited to tune in and watch (click here). This will be our third SLAB presentation and will provide information regarding our current goals and objectives, updated design plans, travel dates, and more. The SLAB board is made up of representatives from both the university and industry in fields such as engineering, social work, regional planning, international education and legal affairs. As we conclude our presentation the members of SLAB will address us with any questions, comments, and/or advice with regards to our recent work. 

We hope you will virtually join us to learn more about our efforts, both recent and future, as the project implementation phase approaches! We will be arriving in Tanzania on May 24th, just 2 1/2 SHORT months away!

We also encourage you to send us your own questions/comments/concerns throughout our presentation, we appreciate any feedback and enjoy any chance to talk about this project. We can be contacted at puc.tanzania@gmail.com. Below you will find the link to the live broadcast.

Remember:  Wednesday, March 9, 4:30 CT, click here to join us

Good afternoon friends, families, and coworkers,

Team Tanzania is settled back in Austin for the Spring semester and classes are starting to pick up. The six of us wanted to wish you all a happy New Year and provide a brief update on our project status!

For the past month we have been frequently communicating with our in-country NGO and a potential technical advisor here in Austin to help us determine the current dorm's stability and the surrounding site characteristics. Knowing these characteristics will allow us to predict how our proposed building will behave over time.  We have attached a picture of excavation being done to know more about the current dorm's foundation.

To move forward with the design process we will need to continue our communications with the NGO and local contractors. We are actively determining the necessary structural components for our multi-use building along with methods to renovate the current dorm and the preventative measures to the issues that will be renovated. We have also started researching and studying construction with, and demolition of, both concrete masonry unit (CMU) and wood to more clearly define a work schedule and better prepare ourselves for implementation of the project!

We will continue to update you all as we progress through the spring semester.

Thank you all for supporting us,

Team Tanzania -

Xoab, Siri, Garrett, Sara, Rachel and Arlene

We are so excited to announce that over the 30 day funding period we were able to raise $15,612!!! We could not be more excited, grateful, and thankful for our donors and supporters at this time. 

Team Tanzania would like to thank each and every one of the 120 donors for supporting our education and this cause. Because of you all, this project is possible and our mission to make education accessible to the very deserving girls of Tanzania is coming to life more and more, every day. 

If you have not already, please like our Facebook page (www.facebook.com/PUCTanzania2016) to see continuous updates throughout the year as we start the design process! 

Best regards, 

Xoab, Siri, Arlene, Garrett, Rachel and Sara 

Good evening everyone! 

We've got some big news to share with you! Today we received confirmation from our in-country NGO and the community themselves that the Pongwe Primary School's girls dormitory expansion project was approved and blessed by all! 

So far we have raised 62% of our final goal for this project! With only 9 days to go, we still have over $5,000 to raise. We kindly ask that you donate and share! share! share! our fundraising page along to any coworkers, friends, and family and ask your employers if they have a matching program. We are so close but we need a lot of support during this final week of fundraising! 

Here's some more information about the project we will be doing: The implementation of this project will allow the school to reopen their enrollment and boarding to visually impaired girls from communities upwards of 1000 Km away! The dormitory provided for these girls is over capacity, provides unfavorable living conditions (especially for those with albinism), and prevent the schools ability to enroll additional students of need. 

Our team will be doubling the capacity of the current dormitory for the amazing girls of Pongwe, allowing the enrollment of twice as many girls while enhancing their current living conditions. This will be done by relocating the current matron of the school who resides in the girls dorm building. Inside the dorm, a separating interior wall will be removed, returning the full dormitory to the girls and doubling the space! We will construct a multi-use standalone building that will be used as the matron's cottage for the time being, but will be designed to be converted into a much needed clinic for the school in the near future.

Thank you so much for visiting our page and helping us spread the word. Please help us reach our final goal by next week!

Please feel free to ask us any questions or for any project updates throughout the year. We can be reached at puc.tanzania@gmail.com

Have a good evening,

Siri, Sara, Arlene, Garrett, Xoab and Rachel (Pictured from left to right) 

Week two is coming to an end and we have raised 37% of our total goal! This is amazing!

We still have a long way to go, with $9,400 still to raise in the 19 remaining days. So far we are on track and would like to hit 50% this week, but we need your help to do it! If you share our HornRaiser and Facebook page with others, we could tell our story to multiple networks of people that could help us reach our goal. 

As the country-wide elections in Tanzania are coming to an end, we expect to have a project chosen soon. We are speaking with the in-country NGO weekly and getting input from the two separate communities to learn more about themselves and the needs of the community. 

It has been a great journey so far and we are so excited for the next steps of this project! Thank you to all of our wonderful donors, we cannot do this without you. Your kindness and generosity is very much appreciated by the members of Team Tanzania! 

Don't forget! All donations are being matched 1:1 by a generous group of anonymous donors. Whatever you donate is DOUBLED!  Your employer might also match as well. If they do and you have any questions regarding that, please send us an email at puc.tanzania@gmail.com 

We would love to answer any and all questions you may have pertaining to this project; feel free to email us any time!

Thanks again everyone, Team Tanzania:  Rachel, Sara, Siri, Garrett, Arlene & Xoab (Pictured left to right)