We are glad to introduce Terry Mulligan, a 26 year old teacher who after teaching for 2 years in Chicago, started a life changing journey to Moshi, Tanzania. In Tanzania, Terry volunteered to teach in a small elementary school. Now he supports MEDLIFE and is helping us to execute the very first Mobile Clinic in Africa.
Terry during his visit to Peru next to MEDLIFE CEO Nick Ellis, MEDLIFE Director of Peru Carlos Benavides and MEDLIFE Director of Mobile Clinics Jorge Cockburn.
Terry visited our office last spring after meeting MEDLIFE Founder and CEO, Nick Ellis during his visit to Tanzania. They stayed at the “Stella Maris”, a beautiful hotel that also subsidizes an elementary school for low-income children and HIV orphans.
Terry is not only a collaborator but also is a volunteer teacher of that school.
“Most of our students are orphans or they’re extremely disadvantaged. They all come from very poor backgrounds” Terry says. “And most of them have to walk 15 minutes to an 1 hour to get to school”.
Terry Mulligan.
After seeing the great work Terry was doing and realizing that it was possible to run volunteer trips in Tanzania, he was invited to learn more about our organization. Last spring, Terry visited the MEDLIFE offices in Lima, Peru. In Peru, Terry was able to meet all of the staff and visit the communities where we work in Lima.
Terry finished his studies at University of Missouri, and achieved his Bachelors degree in Elementary Education. After working in Chicago for several years, he took the opportunity to go and teach in the school run by the Mailisita Foundation. “The first time I taught was for 44 African children with the Mailisita Foundation” says Terry “When I was just a volunteer. I could not imagine that after a couple years I would be returning for stay.”.
Moshi Tanzania is an area just at the foothills of mount Kilimanjaro. The spectacular natural beauty of the surrounding area nearly hides the true reality that the area is incredibly impoverished.
Tanzania has some of the poorest standards of living in the world. Only 44% of the people have access to improved drinking water sources and 70% don’t have access to electricity. In education, only around 25% get enrolled in secondary school.
“The People in Moshi are so welcoming. They are wonderful people who want and need help. The reason why I was so excited to work with MEDLIFE is because one of the principles of the organization is to work hand in hand with communities. The same way MEDLIFE works with communities in Peru or in Ecuador, we can create a partnership here in Tanzania. This will allow the locals to have responsibilities so that together we will be able to accomplish the goals of delivering medicine, education and development”.
At the moment Terry is becoming our new MEDLIFE Director of Tanzania and for the first time, he will be helping us to take the first Mobile Clinic to Moshi, Tanzania.
All of us at MEDLIFE are happy and excited to start this adventure, and we are ready to continue delivering MED’s to low-income families everywhere.