Mt Kilimanjaro, TZ – Lishe Bora welcomes back old friends with Rollins College’s 3rd visit in 5 years – 15 June 2018

Students from Rollins College visited Lishe Bora for the third time in five years. The group of 13 students, one faculty and one staff worked with Lishe Bora for 4 days before starting a safari and then visiting a community in Kenya. It was Dr. Dan Chong’s third time leading a trip with Lishe Bora and two students returned from the 2017 trip. Lishe Bora and local family members are always thrilled to see familiar faces when people come back for a second visit!

The students were planning to spend their time building on the work their classmates did developing Lishe Bora’s eco-farm and lodge. Unfortunately, heavy rains made it impossible to get construction materials to the site. Instead, the group focused on supporting Lishe Bora’s community service initiatives. Projects included:

• 3 compost piles
• 3 new family gardens
• 3 new family water connections
• 300 meters of trenching for community water project
• 1 new community water distribution point
• VICOBA microfinance visit and contribution

This was a huge amount of work for just four days on project, so the students were grateful for high levels of community participation throughout the project. “I thought it was so cool working alongside the community,” said one student, “It really made me feel like they valued the work we were doing because they were so excited to do it, too.”

On their final day in Mkyashi, the students hiked to the eco-farm land to see how things had changed since last year. “That was one of the coolest things, to see how Lishe Bora has continued to develop what we started. It made me feel like the work I did was really important.”