The day we arrived to Magamba, was long. We spent many hours on a bus from Moshi to Magamba and arrived to a hotel where many people who were attending the International Association of Special Education were staying as well. Magamba is a community that lies on top of a mountain. Despite the long drive up curvy, rocky roads, the view of the greenery was breathtaking. After attending the welcome ceremony, we returned to the hotel and continued to work on our Changemaking presentation. At this moment, I began to get nervous. Dr. Jez reassured us that all our hard work was far beyond worthy to present at a national conference. _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________ The next day was presentation day! It was time for the 16th Biannual International Association of Special Education in Magamba, Loshoto, Tanzania. The IASE is a non-profit organization that strives to promote awareness of special education while promoting professional collaboration among educators all over the world. My colleagues and I were thrived to be presenting at this conference but also very nervous as it was our first time presenting at a conference this credited.
We woke up early for some coffee and bread and waited for the buses to pick us up and take us to the conference center. Before presentations began, we heard from a keynote speaker who spoke on the importance of only needing 1/5 of a pencil to succeed. It was truly inspiring to begin the conference on his speech. After a tea break and making last minute adjustments to our presentation, it was our turn. Our room was filled with educators from all over the world, with various backgrounds which made me nervous but also motivated me to present. To our surprise, the chairs in the room filled up, leaving many people standing up and/or listening through the outside.
We began by signing a tradition song, "Jambo," from Tanzania that we learned from Laurent throughout our safari adventure. The song goes as follows:
Jambo Hello Jambo bwana Hello Mister Habari gani How are you? Nzuri sana I am very good Walimu Teachers Mnakaribishwa You are welcome Tanzania yetu Our Tanzania Hakuna matata No Worries
After singing, we began our presentation and explained the process of our research collaboration with the Tanzanian educators. In summary, we presented on how Dr. Jez's CRSTP can be manipulated to accurately target certain and all communities based off the cultural, socioeconomic, emotional, individual and environmental factors. Although it was a collective research presentation, we divided each section. I was presenting on the educational systems both in Tanzania and the U.S. Despite the numerous hours of researching both countries, I was a bit nervous due to my desire to be as accurate a possible.
Once the hour long presentation, we were approached by various educators congratulating us on our work and the accuracy of our collected data. Moreover, many of the educators requested copies of our presentation which we gladly provided for them.
After we completed our presentation, we grabbed more tea and bread (of course) and continued to speak to educators from all over the world.