We visited Tanzania again this year. This time, in addition to the board members, three regular members also visited the country at the same time.

As in previous years, we not only donated textbooks to the schools we visited (this time to two schools, Bonchugu and Nyamakendo), but this year we were also able to take on a number of new challenges and experiences that we had never had before.

■Visit to Sakura Girls Secondary School

Through personal connections, several members of the group visited Sakura Girls Secondary School. This junior high school was founded in Arusha, Tanzania, primarily by the Japanese general incorporated association, Kilimanjaro Association. This was our first visit to a junior high school, and we were able to learn a lot about the current state of education in Tanzania. The students not only spoke Swahili and English, but also a little Japanese, and we all sang together Naotaro Moriyama's "Sakura"!

■ Live streaming challenge

We wanted to convey as realistic an image of the situation on the ground as possible, so we also tried live streaming on social media. Some people may think that live streaming is easy, but the places we visit are rural areas far from urban areas. As a result, the signal is very weak in these areas, and when connecting to both video and audio at the same time, even during online meetings, the signal often freezes.

As a result, even though the video was interrupted many times, we were able to show the textbook presentation and the drawing workshop.

Also, what a miracle! We managed to deliver a realistic video of wildebeests crossing the river.

■Drawing workshop

Thanks to the donation of drawing paper and crayons from Proserve Co., Ltd., we held a drawing workshop at a local elementary school as our first challenge of the year. The school we attended this time was Nyamakendo Elementary School.

It was the first time for both the teacher and the children to use crayons. Perhaps because the teacher instructed them to draw carefully, everyone started by sketching in pencil. I had imagined they would draw more freely, but many of the children started by drawing small lines from the edge, as if to take good care of the paper, and others used the crayon box as a ruler to draw straight lines.

The theme of the painting is "My Dream."

A variety of dreams came up, ranging from occupations that are often mentioned as dreams in Japan to things that don't come up in Japan.

The drawings you will create during the drawing workshop will be exhibited at an event in Japan!