Africa Yuri’s Night Celebrations and Related Activities

What the NPoC for Tanzania and the members of SG from Tanzania did during YURI'S NIGHT on 12th April 2007 was something very unique and challenging. As the NPoC for Tanzania, I issued a PRESS RELEASE to all the students of the University of Dar es Salaam and the College of Engineering so that we could gather during that night at the Nyerere Theater One, which is situated at the University of Dar es Salaam. What we did was that all the participants in that event looked at the MOON for five minutes and at that night the moon was very bright due to the blue sky, in such a way that everyone enjoyed the moonlight. Afterwards we sat down in a circle to symbolise the shape of the moon. Mr. Ntullu then stood at the middle of the group and introduced briefly why we have to celebrate YURI'S NIGHT. He gave an interesting story about how Yuri explored space, as Yuri observed the earth from above and realised that the Earth which we are living on is something delicate with no boundaries on it, no conflicts or wars; whereby it was just like a home where all the people were one people; it was so fragile and it needed to be protected. Not only that, also in our discussion we realised that Yuri paved the way to space exploration which led to space colonisation; as you can find that nowadays many scientists are trying to construct an inter space shuttle, which in turn will enhance space tourism.

As the discussion progressed one member by the name Emmanuel Ollotu, who was a Historian, provoked the discussion by trying to link the idea of GLOBALISATION with the space exploration done by Yuri, because of the way Yuri observed the world and saw it as one home. When you explain about globalisation as an increasing of global connectivity, integration and interdependence in the economic, social, technological, cultural, political, and ecological spheres, whereby the Nations become as one Nation and that is why if there is conflict in one Nation, other Nations may be concerned with settling that dispute. The example was discussed of what happened in Sudan Dafur, and how other Nations put in their effort to settle the crisis in Sudan. This showed that the Earth we are living on is just like a home for all the people, and it reflected what Yuri observed.

After a long discussion whilst sitting down in a circle, I decided to close the event by introducing to them an interesting and simple question for brainstorming. This was: "WHY YURI’S NIGHT?", then I continued and asked "Does it mean that Yuri went into orbit at night? On this discussion some argued that YES Yuri went into orbit at night, other opposed this; while others were not aware on the exactly time when Yuri went into orbit.

That is all about what happened during YURI'S NIGHT in Tanzania, and that above is what we managed to do according to our level of understanding about YURI GAGARIN taking into consideration that SG was a new thing to most of members. We didn't manage to take photos because it was night and we couldn't use a powerful digital camera as we only had the normal camera which uses film.

Space Generation Education was featured in the Media, particularly Radio, simply because there is a session in most of the Radio Stations in Tanzania which is about YOUTH AFFAIRS. As an NPoC for Tanzania, I decided to take advantage of this; and as a youth take the opportunity to educate my fellow youth about space related affairs. This is because I have always believed in education, simply because education to me is like a "MAGIC BULLET" in the sense that, if you hit it right, it can bring a lot of impacts. This is why I saw that it was important for me to educate youth about Space Generation, including the benefit that they will get by joining the network. The session was successful as afterwards I received a lot of emails from different youth who wanted me to direct them on how they could get on board.

SUBMITTED BY Castory Ntullu, SGAC National Point of Contact for Tanzania