Participants of the trip to Tanzania show themselves very impressed.

Also in the summer of 2023, a project group from Friedensau Adventist University (FAU), led by Dr. László Szabó, lecturer at the School of Theology, and Szilvia Szabó, traveled to Karao in Tanzania. From August 14 to 22, 2023, a group from Burger Roland-Gymnasium accompanied them. With them were 12 students and the two teachers Andrea Gohla and Dr. Frank Eisenhut. Two students from the MA Sociology program also joined the group.

During this time, the students of the Burger Roland-Gymnasium supported the teaching and the expansion of the school in Karao. The focus of their work this year was on music, movement, sports and creative classroom design to improve the well-being of the students and the working atmosphere. They offered music lessons to children, showed how to accompany singing with the ukulele. They painted and decorated school rooms, planted trees, sowed corn and prepared a cooking area – but the most popular were the ball games, for which specially brought balls were used.
Leonie Gohla and Paula Sophie Kalthoff, both sociology students, participated in Dr. László Szabó's research project on the lifeworld of Maasai children. The aim of the data collection and interviews of the children was to gain insight into how Maasai children with different family backgrounds (children with families, children of widows and orphans) experience their socialization field (family, boma, village, school, community) and their own, often inadequate living conditions (hunger, lack of water, lack of attention, trauma).
The project leaders were supported by five volunteers who are specifically responsible for the construction projects and development cooperation in the Karao region. And there is a lot to do. Every day, 700 children – 300 of them from Karao – take part in the meal. The school in Karao, built and expanded piece by piece over the past few years by the "Tanzania Project Group", is a contact point for the schoolchildren, but also for their families from Karao and the surrounding villages. Currently, a medical center and a guest house with nine rooms are being built, which will also provide accommodation for the volunteers in the future.

Another team – they were theology students from the FAU together with two students and a lecturer from the Polish Adventist University – arrived on August 16 and stayed until September 7. Their focus was more on practical application of their studies in the surrounding communities. They designed children's programs, visited families in their bomas, held talks, and organized programs on HIV prevention and health issues. They delivered sermons at church services.
What the Participants of the trip to Tanzania experienced is multifaceted. Student feedback shows the powerful impact of their experiences, "The mission trip to Tanzania is one of the most important experiences in my life ... It has permanently enriched me and opened my eyes" (theology student Damir Super). "I think that this trip had a great impact on me ... I learned that we should really start to appreciate more what we have ... and take care of those who don't have as much as we do" (theology student Andrei Sisu).
Once a year, a project group led by Dr. László Szabó has been traveling to this East African country for more than ten years, shaping cooperation with local people. The next trip will take place in 2024.
Since 2019, the Friedensau Adventist University and the Burger Roland-Gymnasium have been linked by the cooperation agreement "One World". It is a project designed to give the students an insight into the subject area of international development cooperation; it is intended to help them gain a better understanding of international and intercultural problems. Together with aid organizations and church institutions, the FAU supports 13 villages in Longido (Tanzania) in development projects. In the field of education, they are currently supporting seven pre-schools and elementary school, and in infrastructure development, the water supply of the schools and villages. To this end, representatives of the FAU travel annually with students from different departments to Tanzania for project assignments. The plan is for them to report on this to the students of Burger Gymnasium in class or on project days, and to accompany them on specific media or climate projects. Currently, some students as well as teachers participate in the project trips and collect money during the school year at benefit concerts and other opportunities to support the work in Karao.