Trip to Tanzania has transformed my life (From Worcester News)

Trip to Tanzania has transformed my life

4:30pm Sunday 29th November 2009

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A WORCESTER man says his life has been transformed after a once-in-a-lifetime trip to Tanzania.

Steve Davis, national engineering manager for logistics firm TNT, said he was touched by “the plight, determination and zest for life” of the malnourished children he met in the country.

Mr Davis, of Swinton Close, St Johns, was part of a company wide delegation who flew out to Kilimanjaro earlier this month for a seven day trip to support the United Nation’s World Food Programme (WFP), which works to feed and educate impoverished orphans and youngsters.

The team travelled to the Oloipiri village primary school, in Loliondo, northern Tanzania, to the “frontline” with WFP workers and help serve maize meal porridge to more than 500 youngsters.

Mr Davis, aged 53, who is head of the TNT fleet of trucks, was chosen due to his consistent high performance at the TNT base in Hartlebury, near Stourport.

During the trip, he and his fellow-travellers planted seeds, built a wood burning stove designed to use less timber and help conserve valuable wood resources, and presenting a cheque for £7,000 raised by the 10-member team.

The money will provide the village with rain harvest tanks to help sustain water supplies during the dry season each year.

Mr Davis said: “It’s obvious from the reactions and comments among our party that we have all been moved by the plight of these people who, like 900 million others on our planet, suffer from lack of water, food and education.

“But what makes it all the more remarkable is that they are so amazingly happy and always smiling, laughing and singing. It’s been a humbling and yet richly rewarding experience for all of us and we have returned more determined than ever to raise awareness and understanding of the need to support the WFP.”

The team also played football with the youngsters, losing 1-0 to the home team, and went on a safari.

The TNT mission was part of a special twinning relationship with Tanzania over the last five years. Every year since then, the company has donated £10 million to the WFP to help raise awareness and combat the effects of hunger around the world.

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