WORK cards

These work cards support ten key photographs which explore life in Kagera Diocese.


The photographs are found on a powerpoint which can be downloaded from , follow schools’ and Kagera Link.

There are also supplementary powerpoints for each category e.g. ‘Carrying’ or ‘Homes’ and a set of activities which can be done with the pictures on their own.

Carrying - Background Notes
A group of children are on their way to collect water. A domestic water supply into the home is a rarity in Tanzania. Most people rely on a communal standpipe, well or nearby river for water, which has to be carried home. The journey to the water supply may be several miles, especially in the dry season when some water sources can dry up. The purity of the water will vary, depending on its source. Water-borne diseases are common and contribute to infant mortality. Great efforts are being made by government and NGOs to improve the health and quality of life of urban and rural communities by providing them with a nearby source of clean water.
Carrying water for all daily needs takes time and effort and is a task done largely by women and also by children, who start helping as soon as they can walk the distance. Recycled plastic containers are lighter and more durable than traditional vessels. Where there is no wheeled transport, many other necessities of daily life also have to be carried by family members. Children become expert in carrying cumbersome loads from an early age.
Performing such daily tasks need not be regarded as drudgery. It is time spent with family and friends, a chance to chat and share news. In a society where the extended family is the principal (and often only) source of support for most, each individual has responsibilities and is valued and respected for their contribution to the well-being of the whole group.
The children are wearing second-hand European clothes imported in bulk and sold at local markets. / Key Questions
Where are the children in the photograph going and why?
What will the water be used for?
How will the children feel on the journey home?
What will it feel like to walk in bare feet?
Where will the children’s clothes have come from?
Which container would you rather carry?
Do you help with daily tasks at home? How does that make you feel? / Activities and Resources
Compare where your water comes from at home and how you get it.
Estimate the difference between an empty container and one filled with water.
Compose a poem using your thoughts as to how the children feel when collecting water.
To find out more about how things are carried in Kagera, look at the KS1 Carrying Powerpoint.

Follow the Schools’ and then Kagera link.
Shopping - Background Notes
A woman buys a loaf at a kiosk selling only bread. The kiosk can be closed up by raising the counter and bringing down the boarding above the shopkeeper’s head. Next door a shop sells a variety of goods including European-style clothing and plastic flowers and fruit.
Tanzanian shops are usually small and supermarkets are rare. Most shopping is done at markets, often set up informally at the roadside. The currency is Tanzanian Shillings, 100TS= 40p, £1=2500TS
Europeans introduced bread making in colonial times. Wheat does not grow in tropical Tanzania and must be imported, so bread is an expensive luxury. The woman may be buying a special treat for her family. The traditional Tanzanian diet is based on locally grown produce, maize, beans, rice, plantains and other vegetables and fruit.
Traditional and modern, European-style clothing is worn. The woman is dressed in khangas, multi-purpose lengths of brightly printed cloth, tied to make a skirt, dress or wrap. / Key Questions
What can you see on sale in the main shop and next door?
Where do you buy your bread from? How is it different from this bread shop?
Can you work out from the photograph how they close up the kiosk at the end of the day?
Why do people only buy bread for a special treat?
How will the woman pay for her bread? / Activities and Resources
If you had a little shop that only sold one thing, what would you sell?
Make Tanzanian Shilling price labels for the bread in your class bread shop.
Pair up to role play the customer and shop keeper.
Estimate how many loaves of bread are on sale in the photo and then count how many you can actually see.
To find out more about shopping and markets in Kagera look at KS1 Shopping Powerpoint

Follow the Schools’ and then Kagera link.
Playing - Background Notes
The day’s lessons are over for younger children at Ngara Anglican Primary School. They play on the swing while waiting to be taken home at mid-day. Some carry their school bags, others discard them on the ground. This is the only swing, so they have to take turns.
The children, often from large, extended families, do not have a lot of play-things of their own and are used to sharing. They have fun together in groups in the open air rather inside their homes, which usually contain little space for play. Children like to make simple toys out of natural or re-cycled objects and enjoy singing and dancing games. Ball games are also popular.
The school is built on the edge of a rocky hillside. The playground is unfenced and surrounded by rough pasture. Part of the area has been cleared of vegetation to be used for assemblies. There is no smooth or soft surface to protect children falling from the swing. A pile of loose bricks lies close by. The rest of the playground is grassy, uneven and strewn with boulders but this does not deter the older children from playing energetic ballgames. From an early age children learn to be active and agile in their surroundings and to calculate risks while playing. / Key Questions
Where do you think the children are playing on the swing?
How is this place different from your school playground?
Why are the children all standing around the one swing?
The children are never bored. What else do you think they do to have fun at playtime?
What might happen if the boy falls off the swing? / Activities and Resources
How would you share if there was only one swing in your playground? What rules might you need?
Make a toy out of junk materials for playing with other people.
Make a display of your toys. Individually describe how it has been made and how you play with/use it. Share your ideas in assembly.
To find out more about how children enjoy themselves in Kagera, look at KS1 Playing Powerpoint

Follow the Schools’ and then Kagera link.
Eating - Background Notes
The school cook at Ngara Anglican Primary School is preparing plantains or green bananas for the school lunch. She is sitting in a corner of the school kitchen.
Plantains are a staple food for Tanzanians. They grow all year round, often on land surrounding the family home. Each banana plant (it is not a tree) produces a large bunch of 40-50 bananas. Plantains are usually bigger than sweet bananas. They are harvested when they are still hard and green. Like any unripe banana they cannot be peeled by hand. The outer skin has to be removed with a knife. They can be sliced and fried or baked but are usually chopped into smaller pieces and boiled until soft. The taste is similar to potato. Boiled plantain, or matoke, is often served with fried cabbage, beans or vegetable stew. Meat is only for special occasions in most households and not for school dinners!
The school kitchen has walls and roof of galvanized steel and an earth floor. There is a separate storeroom in an old container for sacks of maize meal and beans but plantains and fresh fruit come in daily from the local market. Each day large quantities of nourishing food are prepared without the aid of electricity, refrigeration or running water. The school standpipe outside in the playground provides water for all daily uses. Food is cooked in large pots balanced on stones over a wood fire. Washing up is done outside by the pupils and the cleaned utensils and containers are dried in the sun. / Key Questions
What is the school cook doing in the photograph?
What does your school cook wear to carry out her tasks?
Why are these bananas green?
Why is the cook peeling the bananas with a knife?
Why is she cutting them into smaller pieces? / Activities and Resources
What fresh ingredients are used in your school lunches? Where do these come from and how do they get to you?
How many foods used in school can be stored without refrigeration?
Taste plantains (peeled, sliced and boiled or fried) and small sweet bananas. Find these at Asian or Afro-Caribbean food stores or large supermarkets. Record your thoughts.
To find out more about eating different food in Kagera, look at KS1 Eating Powerpoint

Follow the Schools’ and then Kagera link.
Food Farming - Background Notes
A man clears weeds around maize plants in the garden plot below his house. He uses simple tools, like his hand hoe, which are cheaply made and easily repaired. If the weather isright and enough rain falls at the right time, he will grow enough to feed his family each year so hewill be self-sufficient and not have to buy food. If he has surplus crops, he can sell them for cash at the local market. This type of small-scale agriculture is called subsistence farming.
80% of Tanzanians are employed in food production. 70% of farmers cultivate with a hand hoe, 20% use an ox-plough and 10% a tractor. Mechanized agriculture is increasing but is not the norm.
Maize is a staple food, often eaten as a nutritious maize porridge. Beans and peanuts are grown to provide protein and a wide range of vegetables are cultivated. Trees producing mangos, guavas, avocados and other fruit are planted round houses for shade. Farmers grow sweet bananas but, more importantly, they grow plantains, or green bananas, which are another staple food. Plantains have to be cooked and are starchy and filling like potato.
Like many Tanzanians, this man works bare-foot. He is used to it from childhood and the soles of his feet are tough. He keeps his shoes for more formal occasions. He is a parish pastor, organizing worship and ministering to the local people. He grows his own food because his congregation is unable to donate enough money for his family’s basic needs, which include clothes, medicines, school fees, household equipment and travel expenses. / Key Questions
What is this man in the photograph doing?
What is he cultivating and why?
What can you see in the background?
How will the crops be watered?
Where do you get your vegetables from? / Activities and Resources
Find out more about subsistence farming and / or do research about maize and its uses.
At a supermarket or by exploring cupboards at home, find products made from maize.
In Tanzania, meat is only eaten on special occasions. Why do you think this is?
Keep yourself a food diary for just one day and divide it into animal and vegetable products.
To find out more about farming and food production in Kagera look at KS2 Farming Powerpoint and KS1 Eating Powerpoint

Follow the Schools’ and then Kagera link.
Worship - Background Notes
A large crowd has gathered in a partially built church in a remote area in N.W. Tanzania for a confirmation service. People from different villages have walked miles to be at this special occasion. Worship is an important part of community life involving young and old.
Music and movement go together in Africa. No-one sings standing still and the worship is lively and joyful. Among the congregation are different robed choirs (see some in blue with a white cross) who perform their own specially composed worship songs with accompanying dance moves. Traditional drums or battery-powered keyboard provide the backing.
The old parish church in this village has become too small for the growing congregation so a new one is being constructed. While the villagers can make their own bricks from river clay and provide timber for roof beams, they need to raise money to buy cement to strengthen the brickwork and galvanized steel for the roof. This takes time in a farming community where few people earn wages. Meanwhile, tarpaulins shield the congregation from the sun and khangas (lengths of brightly printed cloth) decorate the church and add to the festive atmosphere. / Key Questions
What do you notice in this photograph?
What are the people doing?
How have they decorated this church building for a special occasion?
What is the atmosphere like? Would you like to be a part of this? / Activities and Resources
A khanga has been made into a butterfly shape. Why is a butterfly a good symbol for new life? What other symbols can you think of for new life?
This congregation has been drawn from many villages; each village made up their own worship song. Can you make up your own praise song? When and where would be an appropriate time for you to share this?
‘Is it necessary to have a special building for worship?’
For more information on worship and church life in Kagera look at KS2 Worship Powerpoint

Follow the Schools’ and then Kagera link.
Homes - Background Notes
A mother poses for the camera outside her home before going off to her work at Womancraft. Her husband is studying away from home. Her young son, carried by a neighbour, peeps out from the behind the house. Small shoes by the door, the little chair and chalked graffitti give evidence of other children.
This home is built with mud bricks, protected from the rain by rendering and by the overhanging galvanized steel roof. It consists of two rooms, one for living and eating, one for sleeping. Old rags and plastic sheeting by the entrance keep the floor clean inside while the lace curtain partially screens the open doorway, allowing more air and light to enter. Water for drinking, washing and cooking comes from a communal standpipe.
Cooking is done outside on a charcoal stove. When it rains the stove is put against the wall of the house under the shelter of the over-hanging roof. The twig broom keeps the area swept clean. / Key Questions
What can you see in this picture? What does it tell you about the family and their home?
What materials have been used to make the walls and the roof?
How many rooms do you think are in this house and what are they used for?
Where do you think the family do their cooking?
Why do they leave their front door open? Can you leave your front door open? / Activities and Resources
At home, how much time do you spend inside and how much time outside?
On a Saturday/Sunday, list the activities you spend doing inside and those outside. Make a chart using this data.
List the number of rooms in your house and their uses. Which rooms are essential?
The children have had fun decorating the outside of this house. Create an artistic graffiti-style wall for your class/school.
To find out more about homes and home life in Kagera look at KS2 Homes powerpoint

Follow the Schools’ and then Kagera link.
Travel - Background Notes
On a main road in Ngara, a town in Kagera Province, girls walk to market carrying plantains or green bananas while a family rides on a bicycle. Walking and cycling are the most common forms of transport because owning a motor vehicle is very expensive and many people live in places reached only by footpaths and rough dirt roads.
When the bicycle stops the mother will continue to carry her baby on her back in a sling made from a knotted khanga (length of printed cloth). Buggies are too expensive and impractical for most Tanzanians, who rarely have a smooth road or pavement to travel along.
Strong, Chinese-made bicycles are used to transport heavy goods as well as people. Ingenious ways are found to balance all kinds of things, including market produce, furniture and building materials, stacked up high on the parcel shelf and over the crossbar.
More hard surfaced roads are being constructed across Tanzania, partly with help from China, enabling goods to be carried more easily over long distances in heavy lorries. As more people earn wages, private vehicles are becoming more common while taxis and buses, relatively cheap, provide public transport. Long journeys which take days by road can be made in an hour or two by air for those who can afford the fare. / Key Questions