A Story of Lasting Change: Pazza's Journey Across Tanzania

The first thing Pazza remembered about Igongolo was the cold🤣.

It bit through his clothes, a sharp contrast to the warm sun he had expected. Njombe Rural was a land of misty mornings and chilly nights, where the hills rolled green, and the air carried the scent of damp earth. He was young, eager, and newly arrived, his very first volunteer placement with Raleigh Tanzania.

He had no idea then how many roads lay ahead of him.

Igongolo was a baptism by fire, or rather, by frost. But the community wrapped him in warmth that no weather could steal. By day, he worked alongside villagers, digging, building, learning the rhythms of rural life. By night, he huddled around small fires, listening to elders speak of their hopes for clean water and healthy children. That first project taught him the fundamentals: how to shape a brick, how to dig a pit for a latrine, how to earn trust when you are a stranger.

But more than that, Igongolo planted a seed. Pazza discovered that he loved not just the work, but the people. He loved the moment when a child's eyes lit up with understanding during a hygiene lesson. He loved the shared laughter over a meal of ugali and greens. He loved the quiet pride of looking at a completed foundation and knowing that he had helped put it there.

When that first project ended, he could have gone home. He had done his part. Instead, he asked for more.

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His next stop was Kanga, a village nestled in the warm, humid lowlands of Mvomero, Morogoro region. The cold of Njombe felt like a distant memory as sweat dripped down his face under a different kind of sky.

This time, Pazza returned not as a fresh volunteer but as a team leader.

The title came with weight. He was no longer just responsible for his own hands and heart, but he was responsible for a team of young people, each one looking to him for guidance. They had their own fears, their own hopes, their own reasons for leaving home to serve strangers.

In Kanga, Pazza learned to lead not with authority, but with humility. He woke before the others to plan the day's work. He stayed late to listen when a volunteer felt homesick. He stood between his team and the community, translating not just language but intention, making sure that the project's goals aligned with what the villagers truly needed.

They built latrines. They taught handwashing. They organised women's groups and children's clubs. And when a crisis came, a shortage of materials, a misunderstanding with a local elder, Pazza learned to solve problems that no manual had prepared him for.

By the time he left Kanga, his team had become a family. And Pazza knew, deep in his bones, that this was his path.

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He did not stop.

Chimlata came next, a return to Kongwa, Dodoma, the land of acacia trees and red dust. He was a team leader again, but a different one than the man who had arrived in Kanga. More patient. More steady. More certain of what mattered.

In Chimlata, he saw the full arc of sustainable development. The community had been waiting for Raleigh's arrival, having heard of the work done in neighbouring villages. They welcomed Pazza's team not as outsiders, but as partners. Together, they mapped out where the new latrines would go. Together, they trained teachers to carry the hygiene lessons forward.

Pazza spent long evenings sitting with community elders, listening to their stories of drought and disease, of children lost to preventable illness. He did not offer quick fixes. He offered commitment. He promised nothing he could not deliver, and then he delivered everything he promised.

When the project in Chimlata ended, the village threw a celebration. They sang and danced, and an old woman took Pazza's hands in hers and said, "You came as a visitor. You leave as our son."

He wept. He was not ashamed.

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And then came Msunjile.

Also in Kongwa, Dodoma. Also under that same vast sky. But this village would become the one he spoke of most often in years to come because Msunjile was where everything he had learned, everywhere he had been, came together.

The School Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (SWASH) project in Msunjile was ambitious. His team of volunteers would need to make thousands of bricks, dig pits for a septic tank, and lay foundations for superstructures, all with the help of community members and a local fundi (skilled artisan). But the physical work was only half the mission.

"The main purpose," Pazza would later explain, "was to help improve the WASH condition in the school and the wider community."

So while some volunteers mixed cement, others planned lessons. While others dug trenches, Pazza led the development of the SWASH curriculum for Msunjile Primary School, every standard from 1 to 7. He trained teachers. He organised mobilisation groups for youth, elders, and women. He ran awareness-raising events that drew crowds from neighbouring villages.

"I personally enjoyed taking part in teaching students, playing games with them, and interacting with the Msunjile community," he said, his face lighting up at the memory. "I believe that the knowledge we have imparted to them will help in behavioural change. They will have happier, healthier lives, and they will become good ambassadors to the whole community."

The people of Msunjile, like those before them, opened their homes. They gave Pazza and his team a place to sleep, food to eat, and trust that had to be earned each day anew. He was inspired, again and again, by how openly Tanzanian communities reached for sustainable development and lasting behavioural change.

"I was part of an amazing team," he reflected. "We did physical work helping construct latrines, but we also delivered soft skills to children and the community about good hygiene practices. We planned and delivered SWASH lessons. We organised mobilisation groups. We ran awareness events. We developed resources for teachers and the community. All of this contributed to the sustainable development goals, ensuring that progress was inclusive of all stakeholders—including communities that had once been marginalised."

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Years later, when people asked Pazza about his time with Raleigh Tanzania, he did not speak first of the bricks or the pits or the latrines. He spoke of the people. He spoke of Igongolo's cold mornings and Kanga's humid afternoons, of Chimlata's dancing elders and Msunjile's laughing children.

And then he spoke of himself.

"As a young person," he would say, his voice quiet but certain, "this was not only about contributing to the change I wish to see in our Tanzanian communities. The experience I have gained through all these activities across all these villages has changed me a lot as a person."

He would pause then, and you could see the journey pass behind his eyes: the boy who had shivered in Njombe, the leader who had risen in Morogoro, the son who had been welcomed in Dodoma.

"I can now firmly say," Pazza would conclude, with a smile that held no doubt, "that I am not the same person as when I joined the program."

And he was right. The villages he had served had been transformed, but no more than Pazza himself. He had gone looking for a way to change the world, and instead, the world had reached into his chest and changed his heart.

One cold morning in Igongolo. One hot afternoon in Kanga. One dusty evening in Chimlata. One golden sunrise in Msunjile.

Four villages. One young man. A lifetime of difference.