Finish Line! – Week 13

Jambo marafiki!

Saying goodbye to this internship and all the amazing people I’ve worked with is certainly bittersweet. This is the last blog post I will be writing. I want to thank anyone who has been following along with me and supporting me on this journey. I also want to thank the people who supervised me throughout this time and helped me overcome many challenges; to Maimuna, Delphine, Maria and Bob, thank you for everything. To my fellow remote interns who collaborated with me, provided me with feedback/insight and made this virtual experience less lonely; to Luna, Zarish and Allison, thank you for working alongside me. Last but certainly not least, I want to thank my teammates, Sarah and Willa; you are the best team I could’ve asked for.

For the past week and a half or so, my teammates and I were working on our final report and poster, which includes all of the work we did during these three months. It is incredible to see how much work has been done and how much effort everyone put into this project. It definitely put things into perspective and made me realize how much can be done in such a short amount of time, yet how much work there is left to be done. I also got a lot of helpful feedback on the infographic and poster I made as part of the Mikono Yetu collaboration and tweaked them accordingly. We have also uploaded all of our key deliverables on our Teams folder and many of them are open access and editable for future interns to use as needed.

If you are a future intern reading this many months later, please reach out and ask a lot of questions to the people around you. When I started this experience, I had absolutely no clue what I was doing, especially that I had to switch projects last minute. It is important to read up on the host country and the work that has been done in the past, and get a solid understanding of the project, so that you don’t have to spend too much time in the beginning deciding what to do. I know there is a lot of materials to go through and it can be overwhelming, so reach out to the interns who worked before you for guidance. Another word of advice is to get to know your fellow interns as much as you can before the start of the internship; it is vital to the success of your project that you understand the kinds of people you are working with and how to utilize each person efficiently.

I don’t have a ton of interesting personal updates this time around. I’m reading This is How You Lose The Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone. It is a very unique sci-fi book and I am enjoying it so far. I have also been spending relaxing time with my friends and trying to enjoy what’s left of summer before school starts again. As always, I will share a few pictures.

For the last time, kwaherini =)

Final Steps – Week 11

Jambo marafiki!

It is unbelievable how fast time goes by, these 11 weeks felt like a blink!

In this past while, the team has produced a number of useful documents. The onsite team compiled all the findings from the delivery project into a report which I helped reformat into a presentation. They have also created a reference guide for the student committee at SAUT to use in the future.

I have also finalized the flyer/infographic presenting the studies done on probiotic yogurt in Mwanza and created another poster on the health benefits of Fiti. All of these resources will be shared on our Teams folder and I hope that they will be put to good use.

At the moment, I am working on finishing my sections of the final report as well as any final deliverables.

As for personal updates, this past week had been very exciting! I was in Edmonton for my cousins’ wedding =) she had an outdoor wedding and the venue was absolutely stunning. It was my first time visiting Alberta and I absolutely loved it! I hope I can visit again soon. I will share a few pictures from the trip!

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Photos of the venue =)

Enjoy these random shots from the trip as well!

See you next time, kwaherini =)

Homestretch – Week 9

Jambo marafiki!

It is so hard to believe that we are in the final month of the internship. The past couple of weeks have been less busy than usual but I still have a number of exciting updates!

The onsite team has wrapped up the delivery project and celebrated this feat with the student committee! It has been a successful learning experience and we came out with a lot of data that can prove to be useful in time 🙂

Also, SAUT team had their social media takeover on westernuinternational on Instagram which was very insightful and exciting to follow along with! I encourage you to follow their Instagram account and keep an eye on intern posts to learn more about their experiences!

As for the Mikono Yetu collaboration, I am still working on summarizing the probiotic yogurt studies that were done in Tanzania and presenting them in a flyer that can be used as a resource for health/higher institutions and future interns. We hope to have them reformatted in simpler language and translated to Swahili eventually for distribution among the general public.

As for personal updates, I have been a bit sick so I wasn’t feeling as motivated and that made it hard to be as productive as I aim to be, but I tried to be gentle with myself and allow myself time to rest and recover so I can wrap up the internship in good condition. I’ve been hanging out with my friends and it has been helping lift up my spirits. As per usual, I will share some pictures to end this off. I hope you enjoy them!

Berry Cheesecake that I baked with my friend 🙂

Art picnic with friends 🙂

Take care till next time!

In the Midst of it – Week 7

Jambo marafiki! And Eid Mubarak to those who are celebrating!

It is hard to believe that we are halfway through already. During this time, I was able to join a meeting with the onsite team and SAUT students, and introduce myself to them directly for the first time! It was a pleasure to talk to the group of students, who have been supporting my teammates, and listen to their brilliant ideas and suggestions.

We have worked on and completed a Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) document for the kitchen and we also began drafting a paper report to compile all of our findings so far. The onsite team has launched the delivery project using the cooler that was purchased the week prior, and they are selling pretty well, fortunately! They have also been keeping track of the sales in order to defend our case when proposing to SAUT to allow the kitchen to operate under a student committee.

The kitchen being unable to operate independently causes a plethora of issues, especially challenges with securing small business funds/grants and reinvesting the profits into the kitchen itself. We are really hoping to show that the students are more than capable of running the kitchen and that they have amazing ideas that will allow the project to grow and flourish.

In terms of the collaboration with Mikono Yetu, I have been working on a poster which highlights the health benefits of Fiti while Luna has been working on a brochure. We were able to get our hands on a few studies that were done on probiotics and their impact on (pregnant) women and children. We are planning on creating flyers in simple language which highlight the findings of these studies.

As for the integration of the yogurt kitchen into curriculums at SAUT, the curriculum approval is pending at the moment and we are hoping to gain access to the proposal that was submitted. In the meantime, we are hoping to implement Fiti yogurt kitchen related assignments into the hospitality and tourism department courses.

At this time, I am trying to get in contact with someone from Small Industry Development Organization (SIDO) to see if they can support the development of the kitchen independently and help train the student committee.

As for personal updates, I had the pleasure of being part of a photoshoot for Filthy Rebena (I will share some pictures!). I have also been trying to celebrate Eid with my family and friends amid all the work (the internship and my part-time job), and it has taken quite the toll on my (already messed up) sleep schedule. Also, I have finished reading The Book Eaters (great book! definitely recommend) and I am now reading Circe by Madeline Miller. I haven’t been going on as many walks because of the rain and the smog but I am hoping the weather will clear up soon.

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A cool drawing I saw on one of my walks in downtown =)

Take care till next time! bye-bye! =)

Let’s Get Down to Business – Week 5

Jambo marafiki!

It has been a busy couple of weeks. We have been working hard on getting things moving. The blogs of the 2023 interns have officially been posted on the WHE website, so I encourage you to check those out here!

The onsite team had given a few presentations and in-class announcement as part of our promotional plan and I have been working on an informational brochure in English and Swahili. We received a lot of great feedback from SAUT students and our mentors/supervisors. Additionally, we’re planning on reviewing curriculums of the Tourism and Hospitality department at SAUT to figure out how we can integrate Fiti yogurt kitchens into them.

I have done a lot of research on grant opportunities, specifically the Global Affairs Canada grant but it doesn’t seem to be a good fit for our project. Feeling stumped, I contacted my supervisors, Maria and Bob, and we had a productive meeting that helped clear up a lot of things for me and gave me better ideas on how to move forward. What we really want to achieve here is for the kitchen to make enough profit to become self-sustaining, and grants are just a short-term solution until the kitchen has the means to stand on its own.

I’m also working on a collaboration with Mikono Yetu, our goal is to promote (maternal) health benefits of Fiti yogurt and focus on the women empowerment aspect of the project using social media. We have been brainstorming a lot of great ideas and I’m very excited to see what we come up with in the end.

Last week, we had a meeting to discuss our team dynamic and it helped us reflect on where we are in the project and where we might face challenges in the future, according to Tuckman’s theory of group development.

In terms of challenges with communication and disconnect, the team agreed to utilize our what’s app group chat more and send updates more frequently. We also decided to set a (bi)weekly meeting with our onsite supervisor, Delphine, so that everyone is on the same page and receiving the same information at the same time.

It’s still a bit challenging to balance things but I have been trying to make more time for my hobbies. I’m currently reading a book called The Book Eaters by Sunyi Dean and enjoying it very much. I’ve also had the chance to draw for the first time in a while (I’ll include a picture! It is Hobie from the new ATSV movie!!). I’ve been going on walks more often and I saw a deer the other day! It’s very healing to go out and get fresh air to break the monotone nature of remote work.

I can’t wait to come back with more updates. Take care until then! Kwaherini =)

The First Leg – Week 3

Jambo marafiki!

It is unbelievable how time flies, we are already three weeks into the internship! During this time, the SAUT team has been having lots of meetings with different people to get a better sense of what needs to be done moving forward. We quickly realized that there are many areas of the project that need work but we have decided to focus on three main areas:

1. Promoting the kitchen. We hope this will help increase interest in the kitchen and encourage more student involvement, in turn boosting the yogurt production and sales.
2. Reviewing and amending the bookkeeping process. We hope to improve and sustain management of the project.
3. Expanding the project. The plan is to establish a new kitchen in a nearby community.

We have also drafted a work plan that details short-term, mid-term and long-term goals. Our first reflection was due this weekend as well, so I spent some time thinking about my role in the internship thus far.

This brings me to some personal challenges I have been dealing with. In addition to my work with WHE, I have a job and I have a few other volunteer commitments, so it gets challenging to balance everything at times. I think one of the hardest (and equally most exciting) parts about this experience is the lack of rigid schedule. So far in my life, I have been given instructions in everything I do, always had a predetermined schedule and a set of tasks to complete. This time, I get to create my own schedule and choose what I want to work on. I think I often wonder if I am doing things correctly, but hopefully I will get the hang of it soon =)

Other than that, the feeling of disconnect is sometimes unavoidable in a remote experience such as this. My teammates and I meet every Monday to catch up on events of the previous and upcoming week and they do their best to keep me involved (very much appreciated!!). However, some days there’s a change of plans and I don’t get to find out about it until the next Monday, which doesn’t allow me to support my team as best as I possibly can and leaves me feeling out of loop. It definitely requires more effort in reaching out to combat that. If we can try to meet/call more often or find a more efficient way to share information, it would be helpful. I plan to discuss this with the team in our next meeting!

Last but not least, reading my peers’ blogs has been great in helping me feel connected and sort of living and learning through their experiences. I also try not to work from home all the time (although my room is my sanctuary), it can get pretty gloomy being cooped up in there. I have been doing a cafe tour with a friend of mine, which has been pretty fun! It’s motivating to have a work buddy. I also went to the beach last weekend and it was a nice destresser! Enjoy some pictures from the cafe tour and the beach!

Tutaonana baadaye! =)

Start Line – Week 1

Jambo marafiki!

Welcome to my first blog post. This is an entirely new experience for me and I am looking forward to expanding my knowledge and documenting my progress with the project here =)

I have joined this project later than my peers, because I was assigned another project that is on hold at the moment, so it is taking me some time to adjust. My internship partners and supervisor have been helpful in catching me up and providing me with resources. Setting up the blog has been very challenging for me but I finally figured it out!

I was able to connect with my SAUT partners, who have arrived in Mwanza at this time, and we are communicating through What’s App. I am waiting for them to settle in so we can establish a steady line of communication and set times for weekly meetings. I tend to be a night owl so I doubt the time zone difference would be an issue for us.

I am using this week to research SAUT and the project further, and read blog posts from past interns to learn about their experience. I am also reviewing my Swahili notes and trying to practice the language as much as possible. It is very similar to my mother tongue (Arabic) so I am finding it relatively easy to understand, but it can also be confusing in terms of pronunciation. I am hoping I will get better at it soon and be able to use it efficiently in my meetings with the community partners.

I had the pleasure to meet with Delphine, the project supervisor and a faculty member at SAUT, prior to the start of the internship. She had filled us in on the current status of the project and explained that there are two prominent challenges: the sustainability of the project and the lack of student engagement.

I am excited to meet with my partners next week and decide how we want to begin tackling these challenges. Stay tuned for more updates in my next post!

Kwaheri =)