August 2010 (2 years in 20 days continued)

Pictured: Akida Mdalingwa (Community Outreach field officer) accepting a cheque on behalf of Foxes' NGO from the U.S. Ambassador to Tanzania- Alfonzo Lenhardt. This photo appeared in the Dar es Salaam newspaper 'Mwananchi' on August 31st, 2010.




CHILDREN’S VILLAGE:
We collected a large contribution this month from Alfonso Lenhardt, the United States Ambassador to Tanzania. The 25,500,000Tsh will go towards building the next home at the children’s village. This will cover most of the costs, as we have budgeted the cost of the project to be around 35,000,000Tsh in total costs. Foxes’ NGO in Tanzania has so far been successful in every grant proposal written, and this truly can be attributed to the successful projects the NGO has had so far. In another stroke of good fortune, Rotary International in Hong Kong has also committed around $6500USD to the Children’s Village house building, so the funds are here for house number 2! We in the latest financial meeting wit African Book Box, money was allocated as well to children’s homes, and so we are right on our way to finishing the six homes that the NGO set out to complete from the very beginning! This comes at a good time as the children’s village has filled to capacity, and even as there are plans for some children in temporary ‘faster-care’ scenarios to return home soon, we look forward to having some more space, and expanding the children’s village.

HEALTH CARE:
Mdabulo CTC
One of our most fortunate turns in years occurred this month as well as African Book Box was able to get funding for secured for a CD4 Machine to be placed in the Mdabulo CTC! As building has completed on this project, the Machine was the last gem be put into this building to complete our most important project in terms of HIV treatment and prevention. The funds for the Machine are an equivalent of $50,000, and there is no real way to measure the worth of the machine in this area, as thousands will now be registered and treated through the Mdabulo CTC.
This donation completes a project that has been funded until now with $50,000 secured through Mufindi Orphans Inc, at first through a donation from the Roselyn Hogland Foundation, and then from the M.O.M. Challenge fundraiser of 2009 where members of MOI climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro as a fundraiser for the building. This project will impact the community in a very direct way by bringing treatment and prevention education to thousands of people, and by stemming the spread of this deadly disease that has done so much damage to this area.

COMMUNITY OUTREACH:
While in Dar es Salaam receiving the US Ambassador’s Community Grant for HIV/AIDS relief, many useful contacts were made, and many will hopefully strengthen the donations coming from abroad by supplementing them with money found locally such as the Ambassador’s grant. One organization that was contacted was a Hospital called Comprehensive Community Based Rehabilitation Tanzania (CCBRT) which is now very interested in connecting with Foxes’ NGO and the Community Outreach Program. The Hospital has named our community outreach field officer, Akida Mdalingwa, an official representative of the Hospital. Akida is now able to get patients to Dar es Salaam for treatment through the CCBRT program. He will work with Dr. Leena Pasanen and Jenny Peck during visits to the 16 villages in our area, and he will report patients to the Hospital who will be referred by Dr. Leena. CCBRT will then help transport the patients to Dar es Salaam, and supply treatment for the patients free of charge.
In another promising development several stores and outlets were found in Dar es Salaam that are now interested in selling items such as the baskets, and batik materials made by the women in our income generating projects. This will help bring more sustainability to the projects, and hopefully even bring a source of reoccurring income for the NGO itself in the future.
A proposal given to a local mobile phone service provider was received well this month, and the phone company has promised to help support an income generating project that will start next year. The NGO has a goal of starting a sewing school so that the products in the income generating projects are made of higher quality, and so that various members of the community caring for orphans finish a course with a skill and the knowledge to start their own business if they so choose.

EDUCATION
Luhunga Library
This project continues on now with the roofing all completed. We’re excited about this African Book box funded project as students from Igoda Primary and other primary schools in the Luhunga ward will attend this school and the standard of good quality education will continue on into Secondary School. Luhunga is a relatively new school, and we hope to replicate the success of our projects at Igoda primary school so that Luhunga may become one of the better government schools in the Region, just as Igoda primary has become.