OBU, Aichi Prefecture—An ambulance up for decommissioning after 10 years of service has a new lease of life in a village thousands of kilometers from Japan in the Kilimanjaro region of Tanzania.

Uswa and its population of 12,500 sit at an altitude of 1,500 meters near Mount Kilimanjaro in the east African country.

Without an ambulance, seriously ill patients often faced an hour-plus-long trip on an unpaved road by motorcycle to make it to a city hospital, according to elementary school teacher Naomi Hamajima, who spearheaded the effort after a revelation in August 2023.

Hamajima was on her third trip to the village themed around workshops introducing aspects of Japanese culture, including calligraphy and origami, when she fell ill with amoebiasis.

Timely care from a local doctor luckily saved her from life-threatening complications caused by the illness, which develops after a parasite enters the intestines.

But the experience opened her eyes to the stark difference that a life savable in Japan could be lost in a Tanzanian village because of a lack of adequate health care infrastructure.

This led to the idea to provide the village with an ambulance; the Life Support Project was then established in central Japan’s Obu in January 2024. The effort was comprised of teachers and health care providers, who would collaborate with municipal authorities to make the goal a reality.

NOT HER FIRST PROJECT

Hamajima has been involved in aid activities supporting Uswa and other communities for around a decade.

She was first spurred into action after attending a lecture given by a man from the village where he said that eight students had to share a single textbook due to a lack of financial resources.

Learning of the challenges faced by Tanzanian children living in rural areas allowed Hamajima and her students at the Japanese school where she taught to raise funds for textbooks.

During her fourth trip to Uswa last year, she also visited medical facilities in the major city of Dar es Salaam to assess whether access to an ambulance could effectively improve health care services for locals.

Her travels convinced her it would.

The Life Support Project secured a used ambulance when the Obu city government agreed to provide one set to be retired from use. With it came a stretcher, ventilator and other life-saving equipment typical to a standard ambulance.

For its part, Uswa a sent a pastor from a church that is part of the association tasked with operating the ambulance along with a doctor to Obu in March for extensive training on driving and using the onboard equipment.

Project members hope its addition to the village contributes to a timely and efficient response to medical emergencies in the community.

In total, the Life Support Project collected 750,000 yen ($5,100) in donations to cover the cost of shipping the vehicle from Japan to the Tanzanian port.

Uswa residents covered the tab of 1.03 million yen to get the vehicle the rest of the way to the village.

Baraka Luvanda, Tanzanian ambassador to Japan, expressed his appreciation for the group’s initiative at a city ceremony, also in March, to mark the ambulance’s shipment.

He noted the difficulty of supply aid reaching Tanzania’s rural areas and said the vehicle would help save many lives.

The ambulance made it to Uswa on Aug. 13 after a 10-hour drive from the port of Dar es Salaam.

WORKING TOWARD INDEPENDENCE

Hamajima returned to the village after the arrival of the ambulance to give a lesson on the preciousness of life with help from stethoscopes.

The lesson was also intended to encourage children to work hard academically and become responsible members of the community who would protect the health and safety of residents.

“I emphasized the importance of getting education so that they can apply knowledge they gained at school to repairing the ambulance if it breaks down,” she said. “Access to ambulance services is also an educational opportunity for students.”

The Life Support Project is planning a new endeavor designed to help villagers supplement their income by selling snacks made of bananas and Kilimanjaro coffee—two crops abundant in the community.

Naoyuki Kitase, director of the Life Support Project, said its ultimate goal is to help Uswa villagers become independent.

“We would like to see them make the full use of the ambulance we donated and even build one by themselves” with the expertise and technology they acquire, he said.

Projects like this also exist in a larger scope. Used ambulances and fire trucks have been donated to many countries around the world through a program launched in 1984 as part of Japan’s international contributions.

As of the end of March, the number of the vehicles donated through Nihon Shobo Kyokai, the public interest incorporated association of volunteer fire corps across Japan, stood at 1,796 to 46 countries, many of them in Africa, Latin America and Asia.

Obu’s fire department has provided 15 ambulances to the association.