Tanzanian scholar embarks on Public Health studies at Emory

The scholarship is so competitive that he has to undergo more than 6 interviews with his US sponsors; more than 100 people worldwide were shortlisted, and only two succeeded; he was one of the pair.

Life in the US for Mr Katebalila is a mélange of emotions; he is excited for the opportunity to advance his educational and career goals while concurrently missing his wife and kids back home. “The time difference is a real problem; by the time I get to sleep, my kids are waking up, and I have to say hi to them before they go to school. Children need that connection, and I can’t just tell them I need my rest,” he said.

Mr Katebalila has been in the NGO sector, working for CARE International. For the last ten years, he has travelled across the country in remote villages and communities, tackling complex issues and partnering with the Tanzanian government to improve lives from Simiyu, Njombe, to Lindi. He has touched the lives of ordinary Tanzanians everywhere he has gone.

He emphasises that at CARE International, their main work was to instil self-belief in Tanzanians in knowing that they are personally capable of improving their lives. In every community they visited, that’s the message they told the people: self-reliance.

Despite the programs, like the farming initiatives they establish, they give the people full responsibility to oversee. “We tell them everyone has a role to play, the government, the NGO, but also they as the community have a responsibility as well,” he added.

That has been a success; for a quarter of a century, CARE has been in the country. The international NGO that started in Nyarugusu is helping refugees from the Rwandan genocide.

Ultimately realised that people are not only vulnerable during wars and conflicts but also that there are people vulnerable to policies, education, or financial systems. In their communities, the systems in place might make it difficult for them to prosper in life.

The focal point shifted from humanitarian to development engagement, and Mr Katebalila is proud to have worked in helping Tanzanian farmers, helping communities understand financial literacy, and working with the Tanzanian government to improve education and health services.

 Mr Katebalila has seen how NGOs in Tanzania have played a vital role in communities, working hand in hand with the government to reach communities in dire need. He is concerned about the recent Trump administration’s dissolution of USAID, a major development partner in Tanzania.

Though the NGO he works with ceased working with USAID years before Trump took office, he knows that the effect on the CSO’s community will be brutal. He noted that the education and health sectors will be the hardest hit. Most hospitals in remote areas have worked with donor aid. Tanzania is a large recipient of the funds from the US.

“Most of the malaria, HIV, and vaccine programs were funded by the US government,” he informed. He is saddened by the aspect that many Tanzanians working in the NGOs funded by USAID will now be rendered jobless in a time when kids need school fees and the cost of living is high; the unexpected halt of funding has sent shockwaves across Africa.

  Mr Katebalila, looking at the calamity on a positive side, wants us as Tanzanians to seize this opportunity to build a system of self-reliance, where we get to fund our own social and community projects. “Trump might be helping Africans discover their strength to do it for themselves,” he said. Africa has to have a better resource management system; priorities on people and services are key to improving lives and that’s where our money should be spent, he observed.

Misinformation fuelled on social media had people celebrating the elimination of the USAID program, citing that some of the projects promoted values that are not ‘Tanzanian,’ like same-sex relations. These opinions are debatable, and the scale of the allegations might not be fully known but the impact of the lack of US funding is being felt across the continent.

For now, Mr Katebalila is at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia State, the centre of most public health programs.

He is keen to get back to Tanzania and get back to serving Tanzanian communities as he has done so for more since 2014. The American way of life is so different from Tanzania; he is still learning to adjust to it. This is his first time in the country, and the culture shock is evident. Americans live in solitude, he observed, while back home, greeting strangers is a norm, where everyone has their headphones in their ears and is going about their business, he said. He also noticed that, unlike Tanzania, in Atlanta most services need to have a booked appointment; you can’t just walk in and think you will be catered to.

“At home, whenever you want to visit a health centre if you are under the weather, you can just walk to the nearest, but here you have to book an appointment; you have to log into a system and see if the doctor is available,” he said. He is still learning and adjusting to his new home.

American cuisine has so much salt, he says, but he hopes to walk around Atlanta and visit other places, including the African markets, which sell African food.

For one month, he stayed at the university. He couldn’t even greet the lady sitting in the next cubicle, only to discover that she was also a Tanzanian. Finally, he was able to talk to fellow Tanzanians and speak Kiswahili, something he had longed for.    The Tanzanian community in Atlanta has welcomed him well, Dr Frank Minja a prominent Tanzanian-born associate professor of neuroradiology at Emory University School of Medicine, has made him feel at home as he joins the Tanzanian in Atlanta diaspora family.

He hopes Tanzanians back home can also seek opportunities to study in the US. The country is one of the best places to attain one’s education and on a scholarship, you don’t have to spend a dime for your degree.

He acknowledges that America has many opportunities. He has encountered Tanzanians living and studying in the US, who have huge potential to revolutionise some sectors in the country if they are restricted rather than supported. He says Tanzania has many educated people with high-demand skills worldwide

“I met a young Tanzanian IT professional here; he has a big company back home, and he hopes to go back and expand his work to a broader scale, though he laments about barriers he faced, unlike the better situations he sees in the US,” he said. 

Mr Katebalila said he feels he is indebted to Tanzania for serving the communities back home, with all the opportunities in the US, but his mind is made up to settle in Tanzania after the two years of his studies are done. Right now WhatsApp video calls are the only way he gets in touch with his family but he plans to visit them during a short break sometime this year,