WiRED E-library Provides Health Education Tools for the IMAGE Project in Tanzania

BY ALLISON KOZICHAROW; EDITED BY BERNICE BORN

The IMAGE Project just introduced WiRED International’s Community Health Education (CHE) e-library to a number of impoverished and remote villages in Tanzania.

Since its creation in 2000, the IMAGE Project’s mission has been to empower Maasai girls and women in Tanzania through education and economic opportunities. Founder Deb Pangerl started this nongovernmental organization (NGO) in response to hearing stories of girls in the Maasai tribe who were eager for education and making their voices heard.

Of her recent trip to Tanzania, Ms. Pangerl said, “First, we visited the Maasai village of Sokoine where the women and children were fascinated—first by the computer and then by the [WiRED] material. I doubt that anyone in this village has ever seen a computer—let alone health materials. But, they were intrigued!”

Later in her trip, Ms. Pangerl arrived at the Namnyaki Secondary School, started earlier this year by the IMAGE Project. Many of the girls come from deeply rural areas of Africa and have never dreamed of going to school.

Ms. Pangerl said, “[The students] are all courageous and bold, and [WiRED’s] health materials are a golden opportunity for them to learn [and] share what they learn with others. [They] ... were excited to be able to look at your materials. We have decided to develop a health curriculum for the girls using your library. Thanks so much for sharing your materials.”

WiRED Director Dr. Gary Selnow said, “The fact that an increasing number of NGOs like the IMAGE Project are adopting the CHE e-library supports our passion to provide health education to underserved people everywhere. That’s why we started this project several years ago—to supply the developing world with health training material free of charge.”