Overview

In the shadow of Mount Kilimanjaro, Carleton students and Maasai community partners are co-creating solutions that blend innovation, tradition, and sustainability. For more than a decade, students from Business, Industrial Design, and Environmental disciplines have travelled to Longido, Tanzania, working with local partners on community-identified priorities such as clean water, financial literacy, waste management, and food security.

This collaboration—built through long-standing relationships with Project Tembo and the Echo East Africa Impact Centre—brings together creativity and cultural insight. Students learn by listening, designing, testing, and adapting their ideas alongside community members who know best what works locally.

Past teams have supported initiatives like solar-powered water systems, community enterprises, and circular waste solutions. This year’s projects continue that tradition, focusing on small-scale entrepreneurship, sustainable design, and youth development.

Your support helps fund airfare, accommodations, local facilitation, and project materials—making it possible for students and community innovators to work side by side in Longido. Together, we are building knowledge, skills, and partnerships that will endure long after the field trip.

The Background

Building sustainable, community-led solutions in Longido District, Tanzania through innovation, collaboration, and respect.

The Rollout

Your donation directly supports the collaboration between Carleton students and Maasai community partners in Longido, Tanzania. These funds ensure that students can carry out on-the-ground work safely, effectively, and respectfully—removing financial barriers to participation and ensuring projects have lasting value.

Your contribution will support:

• Local Transport: Getting students and project materials to and from Longido village.

• Accommodations & Meals: Staying at our NGO partner’s guesthouse while working alongside local mentors and translators.

• Facilitation & Research Costs: Supporting community workshops, focus groups, and translation that make true collaboration possible.

• Project Materials & Prototyping: Tools, parts, and testing supplies for projects in sustainable agriculture, education, design, and small enterprise.

Every dollar helps transform classroom learning into real-world impact. This is not a short-term intervention but part of an ongoing exchange—where students and community members design, build, and refine ideas together.

Your generosity sustains a model of learning that builds mutual capacity, shared understanding, and lasting innovation in the Longido region.

The Impact

Community Impact:

Through collaboration, local entrepreneurs and families gain access to practical innovations—such as cleaner energy systems, resource-efficient farming, and small-business training—that strengthen resilience and independence. Projects are co-developed to align with local goals and to remain sustainable after the students leave.

Student Impact:

Carleton students experience applied learning that challenges them to think critically and act collaboratively. They gain insight into social entrepreneurship, ethical design, and community-driven innovation—learning that cannot be replicated in a classroom.

University Impact:

These projects deepen Carleton’s global engagement and strengthen its reputation for experiential education rooted in social responsibility. Students return inspired and equipped to lead with empathy, creativity, and purpose.

At its heart, this initiative is about partnership—people learning from one another, creating together, and proving that education and innovation can thrive through mutual respect and shared goals.