Helping Hands in Tanzania

For the past 10 years I've worked to tell the stories of endangered species in North America. As a journalist, photographer and filmmaker, I've put myself on the front lines of environmental issues.
This trip, and what I hope to accomplish doing it, is unique. Never before have I tried to tackle a more complex, hopeful, sorrowful, difficult and beautiful story.

I use the term “story” in a very casual sense, for this adventure is not simply a tale that I'll walk away from when it's done.

I am a citizen of the world, truly, and am called to Tanzania by the desire to help others – be they human or animals.

If you read not further here is how I plan to help during this single trip alone:

I have been invited to volunteer at a domestic animal shelter – the only “No Kill” shelter in Tanzania. I will be working hands-on to care for dogs and cats, as well as helping maintain and improve the shelter.

Next, through a special visitation program I will economically aid a wildlife rescue center that cares for orphaned elephants and countless other animal species. Each day I am there, observing and meeting with the awesome folks who run the center, I will donate $125 (all of which goes directly to care and feeding of rescued animals). My plan right now is to spend three days there. If I surpass my funding goal, I will be able to add a fourth day.
(Photo credit: Betterplace.org)

I will hand-deliver a box of much needed school supplies to a primary school in the Kilimanjaro region. Bringing more than 300 pencils, 100 pens, rulers, 20 calculators and supplies for the teachers may not seem like much for those of us who live in the US. For those school children, having writing utensils enough for each child is uncommon. According to my teacher contact, most days the kids share a pencil among two or three students and return the ever-shortening writing implement at day's end. My gift of supplies could last the entire school for a full school year.

Through a Social Reality program, I will spend a few days with widows, and their children, who lost their husbands/fathers to AIDS. I will be buying them groceries, childcare goods and sitting down with them in the home to hear their stories. Part of their self sufficiency program is that they create handmade crafts and beaded jewelry, of which I will do my best to support through the purchase of some crafts (see the reward tiers for more information on what I plan to do with these crafts).

Finally, at the base of Kilimanjaro, I will spend a few days with a Maasai Tribe, spending the night with them in their village. I hope to hear their stories and learn of the struggles they face today. Their entire way of life and culture is dying out due to modernization, habitat destruction and climate change.

My aim is to share all of these incredible stories in a book that has already been given the approval by Homeostasis Press Publishing .

Here are a few sobering facts:

African elephants populations have declined 30 percent in the past seven years alone. News of this dire situation is so recent that it actually hit the mainstream press last week.

The black rhino is critically endangered. In fact, the Western African black rhino is considered functionally extinct.

Just this year, African lions were added to the endangered species list.

Those few facts alone were enough to make me want to do something to help, and do it as soon as possible. Then, as I looked into the situation and read the woeful reports, I also realized that the fate of Africa's animals and environment will be the fate of its people.

More facts:

The average annual family income in Tanzania is less than $1500.

Roughly five percent of adults in East Africa are HIV positive, accounting for more than 25 million individuals.

Of the 20 million children orphaned worldwide by AIDS, 85 percent of them live in East Africa .

There are children suffering lives not only of great poverty, but also of great sorrows and loss.

This trip has a window of opportunity for February - March 2017. Most of what I need to reserve will have to paid for no later than November 1, 2016.

There is no time to waste in telling these stories and I am setup to do a lot in less than 20 days on the ground.

I'll need your help to get me there. Together, we can have huge positive imapct on hundreds of lives, and I will tell an important story to the world.

Here's where it gets personal...

We live in a time unparalleled in human history. In many ways, this is THE story of our species.

Homo sapiens sapiens are thought to have first appeared in the area now known as the African Rift Valley some 200,00 years ago. Faced with climate changes and other factors, humans walked out of Africa, and wandered out into the wider world.

I've always felt that I am a “Citizen of the World,” and as such, that a visit to our ancestral stomping grounds is a might bit overdue. I mean, I haven't sent a holiday card to Oldupai Gorge in...well, roughly 200,000 years. It is time to Man up, and return “home.”

Nimerudi means “I am back,” in Swahili. This trip is about making a visceral connection to the origin of our species, at a time when we seem to be on the brink of snuffing ourselves out.

Please visit: http://fragilewaters.wixsite.com/nimerudi for more information.

Asanta sana!

- Rick