Blogging has been very good to me.
Over almost nine years, it’s been a daily blessing in more ways that I can count:
- new friends
- new skills
- new knowledge
- the opportunity to travel
- the ability to pay off a mortgage
- business partnerships
- the chance to do what I love (communicate and build communities) all day, every day—and get paid for it!
Blogging has been very good to me.
Can blogging be used to help others?
However I’ve always wanted blogging to be more than just good to me. I want it to benefit others, too.
The most obvious people I want it to benefit are those who read the blogs I publish. This is why pretty much everything I do has a “how to” or “advice” spin on it.
One of the most exciting things that happens to me each day is being thanked for achieving that goal—helping people improve in some area of their life.
However, I’ve always wanted blogging to be even more than that. Over the last few years, I’ve often found myself wondering how it could be used to make the world a better place in some bigger way.
With the opportunity to communicate to over 4 million people a month, surely I can find a way to do that.
The Tanzanian experiment
Next Thursday I’m going to experiment with doing just that—and I’d love you to join me.
On 25 February, I’m jumping on a plane (well, a series of them) for Dar es Salaam in Tanzania, East Africa.
I’ll be in the country for one week, to spend time observing—and reporting back to my social network on—an amazing project called Comprehensive Community Based Rehabilitation in Tanzania (CCBRT). It’s a project of CBM, an international disability and development organization.
The trip is being organized by CBM Australia (you can read more about it here) with the goal of raising awareness of the issues that are faced every day by people with disabilities in developing countries.
The work that they do is amazing.
Last year alone, they performed over 10,530 surgeries and helped improve the lives of around 120,000 people with disabilities and their carers.
Their work focuses upon many areas, including working with sight-related disabilities, club foot, cleft lip/palate, and maternal health (among others).
Having spent time visiting a number of other projects in developing countries over the years, I know that this trip will be confronting. But I’m excited by the opportunity at hand to both be personally impacted by what I see, and to share the journey with you.
Throughout the week in Tanzania, I’ll be sharing what I see via blog posts, videos, and Tweets. We’ll be focusing mainly upon some the hospital’s work with maternal health issues (mainly fistula) and tracking some of the stories of the people that we meet.
This trip is not a money grab. The intent isn’t to create daily calls for you to donate. I’m sure CBM wouldn’t say no to donations (in fact, they’d go a long way to change lives), but my intent with this trip is to share stories, highlight needs, and show what an amazing organization and its people are doing to meet the needs around them.
My hope is that we’ll all come away from the experience with a better awareness of the issues, and the motivation to do something to make the world a better place (whether that be by supporting the work of CBM, or supporting another need you know of).
How can you join this trip?
The bulk of the blogging that I’ll be doing while away will be on CBM’s blog (there isn’t much there yet, but we’ll be adding to it and redoing to the template significantly in the coming days). I’ll be adding posts, videos, and images during the week that I’m on the ground, and in the weeks that follow.
I’ll probably do an update or two here on ProBlogger also, but I’m aware that this blog is about blogging and not Tanzania or issues facing Developing Countries, so we’ll keep it largely on CBM’s blog.
If you’d like to get those updates please subscribe to their blog here.
You can also follow the journey on Twitter by following CBM’s Twitter account. I’ll be making updates on that and also, from time to time, on the ProBlogger Twitter account.
Lastly – you can support this project by sharing news of it and the content we produce while in Tanzania. Please consider passing on the links to stories we share and helping word spread further about what we’re up to. Thanks!
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