Maendeleo (development) Update- 'Before'

We are all very excited to have our founder/chairman Geoff Fox back from his trip to England. He has lived in Mufindi since 1959 and has such a generous heart for this area. Anyone who knows him and his work can testify that he is committed to seeing this project reach its fullest potential, and he has daily input on the progress of each project. He could easily relax and sit only as a figure-head leader in this organization, and "let the cards fall where they may" in terms of the devastation the HIV has brought to this community, but instead he invests a tireless effort trying to see success for each of the NGO's projects.

This hands on approach is perhaps most evident in terms of development and building projects. Currently there are six major building projects happening simultaneously under the NGO, with a carpentry school starting in the new year. This week an informal discussion about the plans of finishing all of these projects laid out the schedule of work for the carpenters and mason workers.

Dr. Leena Pasanen is blessing us all by moving to Mufindi later this year, and her house- dubbed 'Mapeme House,' due to the trees that surround the house- is nearly finished.

When the current carpentry team is finished with the ceiling and floor installation at Mapeme House, they will move to our Mdabulo Hospital Project where a refurbishment is happening. Several in-patient wards are being refurbished as we speak that will allow the facility to gain more in-patient beds and offer an even better health care service to the community. Right now roofing is being done, and a mason working team will move in after the roof is complete, after which the carpentry team will move in to install a new ceiling.

That roofing team will then move to the clinic at Igoda Children's Village. This will be the clinic where Dr. Leena will be doing a large portion of her work, not just with the 70+ children at the Children's Village, but also with the community as clinics will be held for the surrounding villages, and the clinic will be open for patients as well year-round. When complete, the clinic will be the first health facility ever opened in the village. After the roofing is complete, the mason workers when finished at Mdabulo will come to plaster the walls, then will come the carpentry team to install its ceiling.

This rotation will continue- roofing, then mason work, then plastering of walls, then ceiling, following the clinic as the teams will follow each other to the Nursery school and office under construction.

Finally, at Mwefu primary school two new classrooms are being built as the community shows great initiative in contribution to their school's development. The roofing; mason work, and ceiling are all being done by an independent team from the Mwefu area.

It is not an insignificant thing to mention that all building is done by local workers, using materials purchased locally. Donations to these building projects don't just get the buildings constructed offering unprecedented services to the community, they also improve the local economy helping the villages lift themselves out of poverty and start to recover from the effects of the HIV pandemic.

Consider the follow a couple of "before" pictures, with progress updates coming next week!

Mdabulo roofing of in-patient ward in progress

One classroom complete, and another (to the left)
on its way at Mwefu Primary School

Yusto Chumi Teaches at Igoda Children's Village

Yusto Chumi has been working with Foxes’ NGO since 2009, and his contributions to the community since then have been priceless. His main responsibility has been that of teaching librarian at Igoda Primary School, but he has since played an integral role in so many of the NGO’s various projects.

He has acted as a counselor on a committee at Igoda Children’s Village, he has started his own literacy classroom at Igoda Community Hall, and he has taken on the role of head of our education department, and part of our ‘big committee.’

He has also opened his home to three different volunteers who chose to take a home-stay with a family in the village. He has attended a seminar held in Mbeya last year to learn more about the Montessori method of teaching young children, and he has helped explain the role of the NGO in the community to church members as he is considered a church elder in the community.

At Igoda Primary School, The scope of his role at Igoda Primary School has increased as well over the years. He has been asked to teach the Standard 7 classes English. These students take national exams that are seen as a yardstick to measure the success of the school as a whole. He has also been asked to help tutor students at night, as well as during his lunch breaks he takes a group of students that are not succeeding as well as others, and gives them extra private lessons in the library. Finally, he has helped in other classrooms at the school including kindergarten, as well by teaching English, as his command of the language is tremendous. His teaching skills were on display this week at Igoda Children’s Village, as he has begun to teach English to the kindergarten class once per week to add to their base of English.

We are very grateful to have Yusto as part of the team! He is an exemplary member of his community, and he makes us all very proud to work with him each day!

Nache Medical Treatment Continues

Nache (left) back with friends at Igoda Children's Village

Nache, 12, is a child who is currently struggling with a battle against HIV. We have been reporting on his up and down health status since Doctors Vikki Milne and Will Metcalfe worked with him back in June. He recently ended a three-week long stint as an in-patient at a far-away private Hospital as we are trying to do everything we can to give him the best health care possible. This is a difficult challenge, as our project area of 16 villages (population 30-40,000) still lacks even a health center, and is trying to get by with just 5 health dispensaries for now. The private Hospital Nache went to for three weeks is extremely expensive, and normally not at all within the means of patients in the community. Our NGO had to change budgeting plans for other projects to accommodate the health services bill of over $1000 for his treatment, and this is really a sign to us that there is still a long way to go to providing accessible health care to this community.

With our public private partnership with Mdabulo health facility, and ambitious plans for investments in health care in the area, Foxes’ NGO is trying to change all of this, but it takes time for funding to be realized to achieve these goals. In the meantime, for children like Nache, the outlook would be much more bleak without assistance from the NGO and its health department. Nache had a helper with him for each day and night that he was at the Hospital. He was suffering from respiratory problems, and it was very touch-and-go as to whether he would be back to the Children’s Village with his new family.

We are all so very grateful that he is now back at Igoda Children’s Village, and the guardians are all doing their very best in terms of giving him rest, and a healthy diet to help see him through this. There have been many success stories that have come through the doors of Igoda Children’s Village, and we are all putting all of our efforts forth to make Nache the next one!

Psychosocial Support at Igoda Children's Village

Mzee Ndelwa gives a seminar to our house guardians at Igoda Children's Village. 

Since its inception in July of 2007, Igoda Children's Village has cared for children from some of the community's most dangerous environments. This has typically meant extreme poverty and a high prevalence of HIV, which has prevented families from caring for their children in the village. While the community begins to recover from this disease through NGO projects relating to access of treatment and health education (projects that have their affects on the long-term) there are still children living at the Children's Village that are victims of abuse, or neglect that as they have reached an adolescent age, have begun to have psychosocial issues that they need help resolving.

The care-givers at Igoda Children's Village can all rely on their experience as parents in this community, and their combined experience as guardians at the Children's Village, but there is so far only limited experience in psychosocial support. Enter Pastor/Child Psychologist David Ndelwa. Mzee Ndelwa, as he is known here lives in the Mufindi district village of Ifwagi, and is a Lutheran pastor, with a degree in child psychology. He has just this week made his third visit inside of 12 months to the Children's Village where he has given two and three day seminars on topics such as: appropriate displays for vulnerable children; resolving conflicts with co-workers; sexual harassment; and 'self-realization' courses where he's helped the guardians invent ways get can reach their goals while helping the community reach its goal of caring for all of its vulnerable children.

As a community based organization, we are constantly looking for various ways to give benefits to our heroes who do the endless work of caring for these disadvantaged children. It is hard to put into words the amount of hard work and dedication it takes for the house guardians of these children's homes in the children's village to do their jobs, and we are forever grateful for their perseverance, patience, and respect for their calling. These seminars (occurring for now every two months as supplemented by other organizations, and members of the district social welfare office) have not costed the NGO must in terms of dollars and cents, and yet they have helped out guardians tremendously as the seminars give all of them a place to air out their grievances, and build more togetherness as a working family unit.

We're hoping these seminars will improve overall service to the children at the Children's Village, and our goal is to give these guardians the tools to give the best care possible to these children.

A special thanks here to Mzee Ndelwa, and we welcome him again any time- Karibu tena!

The Big Move: Items Delivered to Mdabulo Health Facility

Over the past 6 or 7 years Marion Gough from Orphans in the Wild UK has been putting forth a tireless effort in collecting items, and packing containers to be sent to Mufindi. 5 containers have been sent over the years, and the items have been incredibly valuable to the community. 

Jenny Peck helps make a moving plan with
Dani Chunga and Ezra Mhegele

This week, as space became available at Mdabulo Health facility after completion of construction of the functioning wing of the facility, countless items were transferred to the facility for its use.

The items collected from various Hospitals from around the UK, and generous donors as well, have been stored in a warehouse (locally called ‘the go-down’) waiting for this day to arrive. 

Marion Gough's work on her annual visits is grately appreciated. She drew this map to help
users of the warehouse find appropriate medical items.

It was a lot of hard work this week, but the warehouse is now completely empty, as items are now stored in the empty containers at Igoda Children’s Village sent through Orphans in the Wild and at Mdabulo health facility. Items include x-ray machines and facilities, hospital beds, surgical instruments, a fully furnished dental clinic, optometry instruments, and countless other medical items. Each of the containers also contained other valuable items pertaining to education and care for vulnerable children, but the delivery of these items brings a special excitement as the Mdabulo health facility will be fully-furnished with health equipment and supplies. 

It was all hands on deck to move this portable x-ray machine without damaging it!
It likely weighs more than 500 kilograms!

This will make an indelible impact on the health services of the area that to date is devoid of Hospital for a 30-40,000 population and over 40 square kilometers.

A special thanks to Marion Gough, her husband Rod, Jane and Bruce Fox, and the whole team at Orphans in the Wild for their tremendous efforts in getting these containers to Mufindi, and supplying the community with unprecedented resources!

Asanteni sana!

(Pictures coming soon of the items in use!)

A Community Building Their Children’s Future

Located in the village of Luhunga, the area of Mwefu has long been one of the most impoverished communities in the NGO’s project area. One of the hardest hit parts of any village in terms of HIV prevalence, Mwefu has long been criticized as an area that had too much apathy, and not enough community involvement as too often the area’s parents had fallen into the trappings of alcohol abuse and had nearly given up hope on seeing development for their neighborhood. In the past year and half things have changed dramatically. 

At the end of 2011, an immense storm hit the neighborhood and destroyed the local primary school. Many outsiders speculated that the community would just be resigned in the fact that they would no longer have a school, as the prospect of re-building would be too daunting. The neighborhood of Mwefu surprised many people however, when immediate plans were made to build new classrooms, and parents of the children at the school who had seen the benefits of education, started carrying sand, stones, and water to help mason workers build new classrooms. The parents also contributed collectively over $1,000 to pay for timber, cement and other supplies to build new classrooms for the students who had to walk over 6 miles to the nearest school while construction was underway in 2012. The school is now built even stronger than before, with even more classrooms than ever before, and in partnership with the NGO (made possible through donations from African Book Box) more classrooms are being built, and the parents continue to contribute to this day.

The NGO has supported the Mwefu community as it aims
 to start a feeding program for its children

UK that has enabled us to contribute to this program as well to get the program started and encourage the neighborhood to continue contributing for years to come. With the donation, the NGO supplied Mwefu with all dishes, pots, pans, cups, and plates for the school so that students will not have to borrow plates and dishes from home, and the school board has said that this will ensure that the program continues uninterrupted from now on, as parents will be more encouraged to contribute food and supplies now that the school will have the resources to keep the program going.

Mwefu parents turned out in droves to support their children's education

The parents were told about this school meeting only a few days in advance, but they arrived in huge numbers- over 100 parents came to show support to the NGO and the school’s programs. We are so very excited to see this community get on its feet and contribute to its own development in partnership with contributions from the NGO. Plans were announced by the NGO to finish construction of two more classrooms, while the community will contribute to finishing two other classrooms.

The tragedy wrought by the storm a year and half ago has been forgotten, and now the community has banded together to build a better school to create a brighter path for the future of its children.

Giving Back in a Sustainable Way

Ngojea Kitinusa, 22 and Dani Chunga, 24 are each from the NGO project area in Mufindi, and each overcame challenging circumstances growing up to continue their own education, and improve their own lives. They both attended Mdabulo Secondary School, and had been working with the NGO during their school breaks to pay for their school fees. We are proud of them both, as they have now both continued their own education into University! 

Ngojea Kitinusa

Ngojea is studying education at Mwanza University specializing in History and Kiswahili. Ngojea eventually would like to shift into the field of either Physiotherapy or Social work, as he has a passion to help his community. He has been working with Hezron, a child at the Children’s Village with cerebral palsy and HIV, and he is very grateful for the chance the NGO has given him to work his way through putting himself through school.

Dani Chunga

Dani was selected to join the Mwenga University College of Education in 2011 where he is getting his Bachelor’s of Arts on Geography as part of the Environmental Studies program. Since 2011, Dani has helped get the health department of the NGO off the ground, as he was a member of the Community Outreach program before the Home Based Care program was initiated. Dani wants to make a difference in his community, and also on the environment as a whole, as he has been most interested in coursework that has had to do with sustainable development.

This week, Ngojea and Dani led a short seminar for our Building and Development department that helped start ideas for the future on how the NGO may become more sustainable. These two used their educational experience and coursework (including project planning, and business planning) to share what they had learned with the leaders of the NGO. We are proud to see this initiative by these two young men, as they have taken it upon themselves to give back any way they can.

The NGO is currently looking for partners to help these types of young students advance in their schooling through loans and earned scholarships. As Ngojea and Dani appear as though they will be bright stars in Tanzania’s future, we would like to give a chance to other future stars to help them build their own futures!