The 2017 Cal Poly team lifts one of the welcome signs into place
For the past several years, students in the College of Architecture and Environmental Design at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo have worked with our organization to design a new vocational training college we are building in the northern highlands of Tanzania. This new school, the Same Polytechnic College, will provide quality educational, social, cultural, economic, and civic advancement to some of the most severely impoverished people in the world.
We tasked the student team to design the Same Polytechnic College campus to be a model of environmentally friendly development that will education through its very design and operations, helping the prepare graduates, faculty, and regional partners for the energy and resource challenges confronting the East African community. Although the development sector has embraced green thinking in recent years, opportunities to create educational institutions where sustainability is practiced at every level - outside the classroom as well as within - are as rare in East Africa as they are in the rest of the world.
Learn more about the design of the Same Polytechnic College campus
Thanks to the incredible efforts of these students, we have made great progress and are almost ready to begin the first phase of construction. To help us in our preparations, some of these students and their faculty advisers have started traveling to Tanzania to volunteer on site. Last year we welcomed a team of six who helped us survey the campus property lines and built welcome signs at the future entrance to the campus. This year we are very excited to see the team grow to thirteen!
The 2017 Cal Poly team hard at work mixing concrete by hand
This year's team is flying half-way around the world to volunteer their time, skills and sweat to built the first construction office on site for our staff and future volunteers to use as construction activities continue to ramp up over the next year. Currently, we have to transport people, tools, and materials back and forth from site each day, but with this new building you will help get built, we will be able to devote more resources and time working on site, helping us reach our final goal of expanding access to education in rural East Africa faster!
This year's entire Cal Poly team has self-funded the costs of their travel and accommodations but now we need your help to raise the $5,000 needed for construction. We can't meet this goal without you. Would you consider making a small donation to support these students and our mission to expand access to education in rural East Africa? Donating is quick and easy with the link below and 100% of your tax deductible contribution will go towards the student's project. Thank you so much for your generosity and support. Be sure to follow us on social media to get updates on the trip later this summer!