Thank you for your interest in Project Wezesha. We created a new website and now our website and blog are together. Please visit http://www.projectwezesha.org/ to find all current information, photographs and updates.
Sincerely,
Rai Farrelly
Co-Founder
Project Wezesha
Monday, July 11, 2011
Sunday, June 5, 2011
Utah Artist, Hadley Rampton, Supports Project Wezesha through Art Sales
Upcoming June-July sales of Hadley Rampton's water colors from the 'Zanzibar' series will benefit Project Wezesha! Keep reading to learn more!! We're so excited!
Hadley Rampton is an exceptional artist from Salt Lake City, Utah. She is perhaps best known for her remarkable plein air oil paintings of wilderness landscapes in Northern Utah. However, her talents with water color are equally impressive. For her water color inspiration, Hadley makes annual trips to Europe to capture the history, architecture and culture of old cities. She strives to find the story of time gone by in the old buildings and cobble stone streets.
Recently, Hadley accompanied me to Tanzania to visit the villages, meet the children in our scholarship program and see the site of Amahoro Secondary School. On the way to Western Tanzania, we traveled to Stone Town on the island of Zanzibar. While there, Hadley captured some wonderful images which she magically transformed into gorgeous water colors. Stone Town makes an ideal setting for painting because, as Hadley puts it "its once affluent buildings, now wonderfully worn, provide an elegant backdrop for the juxtaposition of women in their flowing hijabs and tourists from worlds away."
Anyone who knows Hadley will have many wonderful things to say about her, but I'm sure one of the most frequently mentioned attributes must be her thoughtfulness. She regularly goes the distance to take care of her family and friends. She also serves her community - not only through her art, but also as a devoted employee at Phillips Gallery, a board member for RDT, a supporter of the arts and a promoter of important social and evironmental causes.
In June, Hadley is giving back, yet again by donating 10% of the sales of water color paintings from her 'Zanzibar' series to Project Wezesha! Given the number of images in this show, Project Wezesha has the opportunity to earn up to $550 from these sales. We are deeply grateful to Hadley.
Please help us spread the word about her show and encourage collectors - new and old - to invest in both the beautiful art of a celebrated local artist and the education of children in rural Tanzania.
The show opens on Friday June 17th at Phillips Gallery and runs through July 8th. Hadley's oil and water color paintings will be shown alongside the work of another local artist, Sharon Alderman. For more information on the show, please click here.
Thank you so much, Hadley!Love,
Mgaraganza Village, Lucas and Rai xo
Hadley Rampton is an exceptional artist from Salt Lake City, Utah. She is perhaps best known for her remarkable plein air oil paintings of wilderness landscapes in Northern Utah. However, her talents with water color are equally impressive. For her water color inspiration, Hadley makes annual trips to Europe to capture the history, architecture and culture of old cities. She strives to find the story of time gone by in the old buildings and cobble stone streets.
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| Hadley Rampton painting the sunset over Lake Tanganyika, Tanzania |
Anyone who knows Hadley will have many wonderful things to say about her, but I'm sure one of the most frequently mentioned attributes must be her thoughtfulness. She regularly goes the distance to take care of her family and friends. She also serves her community - not only through her art, but also as a devoted employee at Phillips Gallery, a board member for RDT, a supporter of the arts and a promoter of important social and evironmental causes.
In June, Hadley is giving back, yet again by donating 10% of the sales of water color paintings from her 'Zanzibar' series to Project Wezesha! Given the number of images in this show, Project Wezesha has the opportunity to earn up to $550 from these sales. We are deeply grateful to Hadley. 
Please help us spread the word about her show and encourage collectors - new and old - to invest in both the beautiful art of a celebrated local artist and the education of children in rural Tanzania. The show opens on Friday June 17th at Phillips Gallery and runs through July 8th. Hadley's oil and water color paintings will be shown alongside the work of another local artist, Sharon Alderman. For more information on the show, please click here.
Thank you so much, Hadley!
Mgaraganza Village, Lucas and Rai xo
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
May 2011 Update on Amahoro Secondary School
It is so exciting to see the progress on Amahoro Secondary School. Project Wezesha is lucky to have Lucas as our co-founder and in-country director because he is really driving this project with his encouragement, diligence and excellent photos. He just sent 27 photos via email to share the progress!
Since November, there have been some interruptions in the work due to intense rainy periods and some illnesses. Our General Contractor, Isaya, got very sick in January, but he's better now and back to work - keeping his crew motivated and doing stellar work.
Recent building progress was possible thanks to contributions from friends and family over the holidays and into February when the Ignite Salt Lake presentation garnered some attention for the work of Project Wezesha. I also drove some funds into Project Wezesha as my birthday wish on Facebook this year. We'll have to arrange a few good fundraisers in the summer before I head back in August to make sure all the completed classrooms can get their roofs this summer.
The first big successes of the winter building endeavor were the two additional classrooms that Isaya and his crew finished.
After completing this row of rooms (4 classrooms and 1 office space), Isaya began work on the foundation for the next set of 5 rooms. This required the very difficult job of clearing the land and digging the trenches for the foundation. The foundation consists of a cement/lyme mix poured over boulders placed in the trenches. These stones and the sand that gets mixed with the cement are valuable to local villages - in this case, the village of Mgaraganza has donated all the stones and sand as well as the labor required to get these heavy stones and buckets of sand to the site from a nearby dry riverbed. I've said it before and I'll say it again, those buckets are HEAVY and the women carry them with no hands, babies on their backs and flip flops on their feet. I'm ever impressed!
Again, without Lucas the work would likely get done at a much slower rate. Lucas is often visiting the village and talking with the local leaders to remind them that the school is a community project. After the rainy season, Lucas stirred everyone into action again by checking in and encouraging them to pitch in. I think he's getting good at giving pep talks (as you can see in the picture where he's captivating them).
Lucas, you rock! Asante Sana!!
Since November, there have been some interruptions in the work due to intense rainy periods and some illnesses. Our General Contractor, Isaya, got very sick in January, but he's better now and back to work - keeping his crew motivated and doing stellar work.
Recent building progress was possible thanks to contributions from friends and family over the holidays and into February when the Ignite Salt Lake presentation garnered some attention for the work of Project Wezesha. I also drove some funds into Project Wezesha as my birthday wish on Facebook this year. We'll have to arrange a few good fundraisers in the summer before I head back in August to make sure all the completed classrooms can get their roofs this summer.
The first big successes of the winter building endeavor were the two additional classrooms that Isaya and his crew finished.
After completing this row of rooms (4 classrooms and 1 office space), Isaya began work on the foundation for the next set of 5 rooms. This required the very difficult job of clearing the land and digging the trenches for the foundation. The foundation consists of a cement/lyme mix poured over boulders placed in the trenches. These stones and the sand that gets mixed with the cement are valuable to local villages - in this case, the village of Mgaraganza has donated all the stones and sand as well as the labor required to get these heavy stones and buckets of sand to the site from a nearby dry riverbed. I've said it before and I'll say it again, those buckets are HEAVY and the women carry them with no hands, babies on their backs and flip flops on their feet. I'm ever impressed!
Again, without Lucas the work would likely get done at a much slower rate. Lucas is often visiting the village and talking with the local leaders to remind them that the school is a community project. After the rainy season, Lucas stirred everyone into action again by checking in and encouraging them to pitch in. I think he's getting good at giving pep talks (as you can see in the picture where he's captivating them).
In addition to the villagers of Mgaraganza, a group of students in the Project Wezesha scholarship program came out to help! These students are already going to secondary school at Mwandiga Secondary School and PW helps with their school fees, uniforms and materials. But still, they have come out to Mgaraganza with Lucas to chip in! They carried sand and water and then took some breaks to make sure Isaya was staying on task. :)
After a strong push to get the foundation dug and round up enough stones and sand, the workers finished the foundation for the next row of classes! The next step will be to buy bricks, transport them to the site and start raising them to the sky! So exciting!!
Lucas, you rock! Asante Sana!!Thursday, April 14, 2011
Project Wezesha Founder Speaks at Ignite Salt Lake
Ignite Salt Lake is part of a worldwide speaker series entitled Ignite. The slogan for Ignite is "Englighten us, but make it quick!" The idea is that regular folks from around the world have a chance to speak about something they are passionate about ... in five minutes!
After submitting a proposal and being accepted to present, each speaker prepares a powerpoint presentation on their topic with the following guidelines: You must have 20 slides which will turn automatically every 15 seconds for a total presentation time of 5 minutes exactly. The range of possible topics is unlimited, so the audience is sure to be engaged and entertained as the ideas fly at them all night. The speakers this year presented on topics ranging from communicating directly with astronauts in space to hunting underwater. You can see a list of the speakers and their topics here.
In 2011, Ignite hosted its seventh event in Salt Lake City, Utah. Other Ignite events took place around the world in cities such as Dublin, Mumbai, Bucharest, Amsterdam and up to 100 more! I found out about Ignite through another friend's Facebook wall. She was attending this Ignite event in Salt Lake City and I was intrigued. After finding out there was a call for proposals, I decided to give it a whirl and my topic would be "What happens when you say "Yes" to the request of a village Chief?" The presentation was fun to plan and exciting to deliver - and at the risk of sounding overly confident, I think I nailed it! I even recieved some donations in the days that followed from people who were there and were impressed by the work we're doing in Tanzania! Thank you very much to those fabulous supporters and all of you who have contributed along the way!
So, without further ado - here is my presentation, which tells the story of Project Wezesha.
After submitting a proposal and being accepted to present, each speaker prepares a powerpoint presentation on their topic with the following guidelines: You must have 20 slides which will turn automatically every 15 seconds for a total presentation time of 5 minutes exactly. The range of possible topics is unlimited, so the audience is sure to be engaged and entertained as the ideas fly at them all night. The speakers this year presented on topics ranging from communicating directly with astronauts in space to hunting underwater. You can see a list of the speakers and their topics here.
In 2011, Ignite hosted its seventh event in Salt Lake City, Utah. Other Ignite events took place around the world in cities such as Dublin, Mumbai, Bucharest, Amsterdam and up to 100 more! I found out about Ignite through another friend's Facebook wall. She was attending this Ignite event in Salt Lake City and I was intrigued. After finding out there was a call for proposals, I decided to give it a whirl and my topic would be "What happens when you say "Yes" to the request of a village Chief?" The presentation was fun to plan and exciting to deliver - and at the risk of sounding overly confident, I think I nailed it! I even recieved some donations in the days that followed from people who were there and were impressed by the work we're doing in Tanzania! Thank you very much to those fabulous supporters and all of you who have contributed along the way!
So, without further ado - here is my presentation, which tells the story of Project Wezesha.
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