Since presenting to the San Marino Rotary two years ago, 22-year-old Olivia Leventhal has made great strides in the non-profit Mlangarini Project she founded to better the health and education of students attending Mlangarini Primary School located in Arusha, Tanzania.
Leventhal, now a research assistant in a neuroimmunology lab at Stanford University studying Alzheimer’s and aging, started the non-profit as a high school student at Crossroads School for the Arts and Sciences after returning from a Putney Summer program. Leventhal graduated from Crossroads School in 2014 and went on to attend Swarthmore College. She graduated from Swarthmore this year with a Bachelor of Arts in neuroscience and plans to eventually attend medical school.
Leventhal’s Venice-based parents Ken Hurbert—who grew up in San Marino—and Cindy Kolodziejski work with her to help the people of Mlangarini and have traveled with her numerous times as a family to the Tanzanian village.
It was during the summer of 2011 that the then-15-year-old Leventhal was encouraged by her parents to visit Mlangarini with the student travel program. For the program, she and 15 other students lived in Mlangarini village for one month and worked to build a classroom for Mlangarini Primary School, an underfunded government school. The warmth of the people despite the challenges of the underdeveloped village and befriending a 7-year-old girl there named Salima Khalidi left a huge mark on Leventhal and led her to found the organization to help the students succeed.
Kolodziejski shared with The Tribune that although other locations such as Europe and Asia were initial options for travel, she wanted her daughter to gain perspective on the wealth of opportunity that she has as an American compared to underdeveloped nations.
“I wanted her to know that there are people out there who have far less and [who] also are happy,” said Kolodziejski. “There’s much different ways that people live and that we are lucky and she is lucky. You can do things for people to make their lives better.”
Leventhal has taken that message to heart. In the past two years, the Mlangarini Project has completed two major projects and has one project in progress, in addition to purchasing textbooks, school uniforms, and school supplies for Mlangarini Primary School.
Also currently in transit to the village is a shipping container filled with 250 boxes of donated shoes, clothes, composition books, tooth brushes, soccer balls, and other goods. The shipping container, made possible with donations from Rotarian Isaac Hung, was packed at the Pasadena Community Christian Church with Ken Hurbert, church member Kimmit Haggins and others.
San Marino dentist and Rotarian Dr. Fary Yassamy has also donated numerous toothbrushes and other items, according to Leventhal. Many other members of the San Marino Rotary have also given smaller donations to support the project.
The two recently completed projects include the installation of a rain water collection technology as a means to provide clean drinking water, and the construction of a new kitchen with new stoves so that the teachers can prepare lunch for the students. Leventhal shared with The Tribune that both projects have been major successes and she’s received a great amount of positive feedback from the school.
Leventhal said that the rain water collection project has been a “dream” of hers since the beginning. The village has an issue with too much fluoride in the ground water, which causes dental and skeletal fluorosis, so having tanks to collect the fluoride-free rain water enables the school to have safe drinking water. As the village has received considerable rainfall since the water tank installation, the students were able to immediately access the clean water. She is looking to build even more water tanks to capitalize on the rainy seasons.
“I think that the rain water collection technology is the most important contribution we have made to Mlangarini Project because although our project is focused on education, if the students and surrounding community don’t have clean water or enough water, they will not be able to utilize their education or finish it.” said Leventhal.
For the new kitchen and new stoves, “the teachers who are cooking for the students find [them] much more efficient, and they are no longer inhaling the same magnitude of smoke as they were with the open fire stoves,” said Leventhal. “We are also hoping to buy more stoves because the teachers really like them and the more stoves they have the more food they can provide to the students.”
Next up for the Mlangarini Project is a multi-faceted sanitation project, which is aimed at improving the students’ health and hygiene. Currently the toilets at the school are not connected to sewage and there is nowhere for students to wash their hands after using the restroom, a health aspect that many Americans may take for granted.
For the first step of the sanitation project, Leventhal plans to install a hand washing station near the toilets with mirrors. She feels it will improve the overall health of the students by decreasing the spread of viruses and bacteria, as well as teaching the students good habits and keeping the school environment clean.
“I think the mirrors are a simple item most people in the United States have access to and that by adding them to the schools they will help the students get in the practice of paying attention to their presentation, which can be very important for applying for jobs and higher education,” Leventhal explained.
Looking to the future, Leventhal said the experience of working with the people of Mlangarini has helped her become more open minded with others and more keen on understanding differences.
“The Mlangarini project has elucidated the many differences that exist in the world and that people come from very different backgrounds and have very different challenges,” expressed Leventhal.
Since its founding in 2011, the Mlangarini Project has purchased more than 3,600 textbooks for the children of Mlangarini Primary School as well as 500 school uniforms, 10 soccer balls, first aid supplies, two solar panels and more than 120 desks, in addition to funding numerous facility improvements.
The Mlangarini Project collects both monetary and material donations. Donations can be made at www.mlangariniproject.org or mailed to The Mlangarini Project, 2009 Glyndon Ave., Venice, CA 90291.
