How many busses to Nairobi?

The price of TSH 200.000 is a big hurdle for Tanzanian civil society

The first preparation to the Wold Social Forum, was the Tanzanian Social Forum 2006.

The registration fee per person of seven US dollars to participate in the World Social Forum in Nairobi is not the problem. But transport and accommodation is. That is why there is still no queue to go to Nairobi.
The Tanzanian steering committee and the secretariat at Tango struggles to solve the problem with the transport. The plan is to rent busses and find donors to pay or reduce the rent. But until now only one bus can be filled up with the 45 participants already registered. For the planners the problem is that everybody can go and register to participate up to and even on the same day of the event.
15 individuals have already registered and 30 Tango members from the regions and staff are sure to go. In Mwanza and Lindi many more have registered. From Mwanza as many as 150 but the bus fare to Nairobi is less from Mwanza. 
- We advice people to find their own private donor for the costs. At Tango we have no funding for the participants. The small funds we have received are for the planning and mobilizing in Tanzania before the meeting in January, says coordinator Venant William.
Accommodation does not have to cost TSH 15.000 per night. At the venue big tents accommodating 40.000 people will be put up, and here participants can sleep for free.

Seven committees are working to plan the event here in Tanzania.
- We could still need active people in the committees. And to be a volunteer in a committee you do not have to go to Nairobi, invites Venant William.
The committees are:

·        Resource mobilization

·        Social mobilization

·        Media and publicity

·        Content

·        Logistics

·        Youth

·        Cultural exhibition 

The Caravan

Dar es Salaam will also feel the international touch of the World Social Forum. On the 18^th of January the busses with the participants from Zambia, Zimbabwe and maybe South Africa will stop over in Dar, and the steering committee and the Tanzanian civil society will welcome them with a big social event.
The next day the caravan will continue together with the busses from Tanzania, to arrive to the opening in Nairobi on the 20^th of January.
- We still do not know how long the caravan is, but we know that Zambia has confirmed 47 participants coming in busses, tells Venant William.