Thirteen students along with Upper School Science Department Chair Anita Chetty and Upper School biology teacher Mike Pistacchi will journey on their second annual trip to Tanzania on June 5.

This trip will last 13 days and the group will visit five different tribes, one of which being the Maasai tribe.

Last year, the 11 students who were on the first Tanzania trip organized several fundraisers to provide the Maasai community with resources, including prescription glasses, stationery, and Swahili textbooks. Proceeds from a snack sale at the Research Symposium were used to buy the textbooks for the children, and a prescription glasses and stationery drive were hosted at the Upper School.

Students continued the eyeglass drive this year, with all collected glasses being shipped to Lions Club, a non- profit service organization headquartered in Oak Brook, Illinois. Lions Club sent back a box of 250 packaged reading glasses with diopter readings for the students to distribute in Tanzania.

In the summer, students will use eye charts to determine the reading levels of the Maasai people and prescribing them the glasses to help their vision. According to Chetty, the intricate beadwork of the Maasai often strains the eyes.

“We have the opportunity to impact directly the lives of these people who right now can’t read close-up, can’t see close-up, so they can’t do their beadwork which they actually sell to get money and send their children to school,” Chetty said.

Members of Women in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (WiSTEM) also contributed to the cause by raising money through STEM Week and receiving a grant from a parent. Proceeds were used to purchase uniforms for children at St. Elizabeth’s Hospital in Tanzania, which specializes in the care of HIV positive children.

Like last year, students held a snack sale at the Symposium, raising a total of $400, and each dollar was matched by their travel company. Supplies including 75 chemistry textbooks, 64 math textbooks, and 15 goats were purchased with the donations. In addition to school supplies, Harker students have also been collecting medical supplies such as sutures and bandages for a clinic in Tanzania, which was started by a Californian doctor and his wife.

Students attending the trip include Noel Banerjee (11), Jeremy Binkley (11), Grace Cao (11), Katie Chung (10), Alyssa Crawford (10), Shreya Mathur (10), Ayush Midha (11), Madhavan Nair (11), Erika Olsen (11), Nikita Parulkar (11), Chandini Thakur (10), and Jessica Yang (11).

The philanthropic efforts of the students will continue on until their departure.

This piece was originally published in the pages of the Winged Post on May 16, 2014.