(Radio Iowa) – Three students who were flown to Sioux City for treatment after a deadly school bus crash in Tanzania nearly eight years ago were honored by conservationist Jane Goodall in a speech Sunday in Sioux City.

Missionaries from Sioux City saved the students, while 35 other people died in the accident. Survivor Wilson Tarimo who returned to Sioux City in 2022 to attend college is now 20. “We have made many people understand how to have humanity, to have love and respect, and to live life worth living,” he says. The three students first met Jane Goodall in Tanzania in 2018, where Goodall started her groundbreaking research on chimpanzees in the 1960s.

Jane Goodall and Tanzanian students. (photo from Sheila Brummer)

Tarimo and the two other Tanzanian students plan to be ambassadors for Goodall’s “Roots and Shoots” program, which focuses on environmental, conservation, and humanitarian issues. The Jane Goodall Institute lost funding due to recent cuts to the U-S Agency for International Development (USAID). Goodall told reporters in Sioux City before her speech that even tough times are tough, “they’ll make it.”

A movie is in the works about the Tanzanian students and their connection to Sioux City.