Program Staff

International Director - Mushahid Hussain Mohammed Munshif

Musha was raised in the Island of Sri Lanka. Joined an organization early in his career providing outdoor education and experiential learning programs for students and adults. Through the years he has been involved in many experiential learning programs for students mainly in the United Arab Emirates and Australia. Currently he works on the international programs team for a UAE based organization heading the programs in Sri Lanka. This would be his 3rd Season with GLA and is looking forward to another wonderful summer.

Mentor - Peggy Borelli

Peggy lives in Connecticut on a quiet lake. She is a school social worker at a high school during the school year. She travels somewhere new every chance she gets. This summer will be her fourth as a mentor. Peggy is excited to work with GLA students in Tanzania this summer.

Mentor - Kristine Carlos 

Kristine, originally from Taunton, Massachusetts, discovered her love for Anthropology while studying at the University of Central Florida in Kissimmee, Florida. Her teaching ventures took her to Shenzhen, China, and Kanchipuram, India, where she shared her expertise in English Language Education as a Fulbright Scholar. Having explored Asia extensively, she found herself captivated by Tanzania during her time as a Global Leadership Adventures student in 2012. Now, she eagerly anticipates guiding students through Tanzania's wonders as a mentor with GLA this summer.

Local Team - Agape 

Agape was born and raised in Rau Village where the GLA Home Base is located and has been part of the GLA family for many years!  Agape worked with GLA in 2009, returned to work with GLA again in 2013, and has been with us ever since! In 2015, Agape took on the role of Local Program Director.  Agape has a certificate in education and she also has her own business when not running GLA programs. In her spare time, Agape loves watching movies and relaxing with her friends and family.

Country Administrator - Esther Martin Simba

Esther Martin Simba (Mwalimu means “Teacher” in Swahili, the national language of Tanzania) is the founder, owner and Director of Experience Tanzania Co. Ltd. which is based in Arusha, Tanzania. She directs the company with the zeal on cultural tourism, organizes and runs students and volunteer programs for people who come to Tanzania from around the world, operate Experience Tanzania home lodges, Swahili for foreigners, English, French and German language trainings, Women and Youth Empowerment, Educational Consultancy and Wildlife Safari.

“Mama Simba” as many people prefer to call her obtained her Bachelor of Education with Languages (Swahili and English) at the Tumaini University Makumira in Tanzania, East Africa. She also has a diploma in music and a diploma in “Applied Linguistics” obtained in Singapore at the Regional Language Center (RELC). She participated in more than fifteen US Peace Corps Training of Trainers workshops and “Transformational Leadership for Women’s Empowerment Workshop” at Naura Springs, Arusha, Tanzania.

Mama Simba is a certified trainer who began her career as a primary school teacher (five years) and later on taught at secondary schools (twelve years) and then trained teachers at Patandi and Marangu Teacher Training Colleges for ten years. She has worked with the US Peace Corps Tanzania on consultancy basis at different capacities (1989-2001), the founder and country director for Cross-Cultural Solutions, Tanzania (2002-2007).

She is currently an associate trainer and representative of Tanzania Global Development Learning Centre (TGDLC) where she is also one of the co-facilitators for “Transformational Leadership for Women’s Empowerment Workshops” globally. Through her company she has also partnered with many local and international organizations with the passion to make a difference in a unique way in other people’s lives.

In addition, her experiences have taken her to work with MS-TCDC which is a Training Centre for Development Cooperation in Eastern and Southern Africa (Usa River, Tanzania), School Partnership Worldwide (based in UK), Vision in Action (based in US), Global Service Corps - Tanzania HIV/AIDS Prevention Program (2001) to mention a few. She has also written a few Competency Based Swahili language books integrated with Cross-Cultural Notes eg. Sema Kiswahili Furahia Tanzania for US Peace Corps, Tanzania.

Mama Simba is a skillful and talented language trainer of Swahili and English,competent cross-cultural facilitator, empowered with leadership skills to train and lead others. She is not only a director or a leader but also “a dear mother” away from your own mother, loving, caring, charismatic, approachable, supportive, dedicated to achievea certain goal, and flexible enough to accommodate new ideas and people with different backgrounds. The “team spirit” has made her grow stronger and easy to work with as a team player. Somehow, Mama Simba manages to turn all her challenges into opportunities, learns from them and moves forward knowing that the sky is the limit. She has gained a lot of world life experiences from places she has traveled to such as the US, UK, Singapore, Malaysia, Peru, South Africa, Botswana, Swaziland, Malawi, Eritrea, Uganda and Kenya and she brings in the experiences to make life more meaningful.

Her passion is to empower others in special ways, develop herself and others at different levels to meet the changing world and support them in any way possible for them to reach their goals. Her life philosophies have been fearing God and establishing a personal relationship with him, fighting against personal and community poverty, supporting others (young and adults), and educational development. For her, it is always a great privilege and honor to work with the local and global communities, to be trusted and to be given the opportunity to serve the world at large.

Her history with GLA goes all the way back to 2002 when she first met the executive director for GLA (Mr. Andrew Motiwalla). After working with him for some years at Cross-Cultural Solutions they parted ways until year 2008 when he flew all the way back to Tanzania to team up with Mama Simba for GLA Tanzania to be born. GLA Tanzania took its beginning in June 2009 and she has then been the first GLA Tanzania country director since that year. She started with one program in Moshi-Kilimanjaro but 2011 she was able to give birth to the second program which took place in Tengeru-Arusha region.

It is her prayer that all the students who join GLA Tanzania will have life time memories and GLA Tanzania are meant to give its program participants the opportunity to experience positively and make a change.

Check out this video of Mama Simba: http://bit.ly/mamasimba