Supply the Love: Tanzania
Supply the Love: We supply the camera and film and you supply the love! We would love to have you be an ambassador of Print the Love! If you are traveling to an under-resourced community anywhere on the globe in the next year and would like to participate in spreading random photo kindness to the local people, lets chat! Together we can make a difference! Application is online.
The Supply the Love program is 100% supported by donors. If you are not travelling, you can still donate funds towards the camera and film for those who are.
As part of the program, we ask that ambassadors write a short description of their experience. All the words are their own.
Carli in Tanzania
In January of 2019 I settled into the beautiful town of Arusha, Tanzania which would be my new home for the next six months.
I immediately saw immense beauty surrounding me — deep hues of green contrasted by a true blue sky, streets filled with people wearing colorful wraps and dresses, and a hazy dust that cleared with rainfall to reveal the wondrous backdrop of Mount Meru. What I didn’t know right then and there is how this environmental beauty would pale in comparison to the beauty I was soon to find in the humans that were now my neighbors.
As a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) nurse, I spent most of my time in the hospital working alongside nurses, doctors, mamas and their babies as we fought for the healing and growth of babies born prematurely or with life-threatening health conditions. The camera and film provided by Print the Love was a huge blessing at our first annual NICU Reunion party. This party provided an intentional space for celebration of the babies who had “graduated” from the NICU.
The pictures we printed captured a memory of a very proud milestone for these families as we recognized the growth and healing that had taken place since these babies were first born and required some kind of NICU care. These parents were beyond excited to have a physical print they were able to take home with them and many even asked for a duplicate photo so each parent could have a copy to hold.
What they say is true, a picture is worth a thousand words, so I’ll wrap up my writing here and resort to the pictures included to illustrate the glow of happiness these parents felt as we provided prints of their families.
