From tuk tuks to farm yards– vocational training team trip an eye opener

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Published on Tuesday, June 14, 2016

Photo by Kira Paterson. Bill Taylor, a retired teacher from Brandon, spoke to the Neepawa Rotary club on June 10 about his participation in a Rotary Sponsored Vocational Training Team.

By Kira Paterson

Neepawa Banner/Neepawa Press

The Neepawa Rotary Club and guests at their weekly luncheon meeting on Friday, June 10 got to see a bit of Ethiopia, thanks to their guest speaker of the week.

Bill Taylor, a retired teacher from Brandon, was part of a Rotary Sponsored Vocational Training Team that went to Ethiopia to train school teachers.

He was part of a team of nine retired teachers who went to the African country in October of last year. 

At the meeting, Taylor presented a slide show of pictures of the things he saw on his trip. From tuk tuks (a three-wheeled, doorless taxi), to palm tree lined avenues, to weedy schoolyards, he gave the audience a glimpse of what Ethiopia was like. 

Taylor and his team visited three schools in a city of 300,000 called Bahir Dar. It is about 350 kilometres from the capital, Addis Ababa, which was where their plane landed. The flight was 14 hours from Toronto and the drive from the capital to Bahir Dar was 12 hours. 

At Bahir Dar, the team loaded into tuk tuks and drove to a weed patch, where they began their walk along a dirt path to get to the first school. Taylor said that when they got to the school, he thought it was a farm yard. There were cows everywhere and a big metal building that looked like a grainery. 

He said there were between 800 and 1,000 students attending this school, but the teachers did not have definite numbers because they didn’t keep attendance. He noted that each class had about 45 to 50 kids in it. 

The big metal building in the middle of the school yard was actually a dairy. Taylor explained that the federal government, even though it has mandated that every child goes to school, won’t supply funds to build schools. It’s up to a community to build a school and the government will supply the teachers. So the parents at this school bought cows and used the dairy and the cattle to generate income to build the school and maintain it as well as they could. 

He also visited one school that was outside the city. Eight small villages came together to build this one school out of sticks, grass and mud so that they could get the government to send them teachers. That school had about 1,500 children coming from the eight villages. 

Because the government employed the teachers, Taylor said they were all very good at their jobs. However, they weren’t allowed to have inservices and had no way of knowing the best ways to teach. He said that his team didn’t teach them, so much as provide suggestions, ideas and feedback based on how the teachers taught. The teachers were all very grateful and eager to learn how schools worked in Canada. 

The nine retired teachers were each allowed to bring 100 pounds worth of luggage, so Taylor brought about 80 pounds of school supplies. He packed lesson plans, class material, as well as some sporting goods like footballs and volleyballs. The teachers there were very thankful for everything the team brought for them. 

Taylor said it was quite an experience. The different ways of living between Ethiopia and Canada made them seem like two totally different worlds. 

Neepawa Rotarian Dave Bennet, who was the one who invited Bill Taylor, mentioned the next VTT opportunity for teachers is coming up soon. He said this time, the group will go to Guatemala. The Rotary Club is looking for four retired or active teachers who are able to adapt to different living conditions to volunteer for this trip. The volunteers do not have to be a member of the Rotary Club, just have experience in teaching. The application deadline for this opportunity is June 17.