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| In the beginning:
Hello, my name is Carol Doyle. In 2009 I was a "granny" volunteer in Tanzania, working in a Baby Home and Orphanage. Although not yet a grandmother I could see I was way older than anyone there, (64 years) including the local mamas who worked at the home, but I got stuck in, worked hard, had boundless energy and I know I made a difference in the orphanage as does any volunteer who goes there.
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A meeting along the road
On one of my last days off, as I was walking towards the local hotel to use the internet (and their pool!), I met Japhet. He was holding a paper in his hands and he explained that he was going to the Hotel to photocopy his approval from the Mwanza City Council to run a children’s centre. When I talked further with him it transpired that he was a local teacher in Ndama (near Igoma/Mwanza).
He told me he had a total of ten orphaned children, each one having been left at some stage or other outside his school. He had become responsible for them and was trying to house and feed them with the help of some local mamas in the village. As a trained teacher he earned about 150,000 Tsh (approx £75) per month. He explained that he
receives NO help from the government. This is because he is not licensed yet (in order to be licensed there are many hoops to jump through, all of which cost money).
With only a few weeks remaining for me in Tanzania, and desperate to see if I could help,I promised to visit him and the children. I went back to my volunteer house and after speaking to fellow workers and volunteers I managed to get a few things together (books,pencils, paper, tee shirts, clothes etc and set off on the daladala with the assistant manager of the baby home.
First Impressions
We met Japhet and saw his village school. It had walls/dirt floors/no windows/doors or roof. The few makeshift desks and benches and a plastered area on the wall for a
blackboard was the classroom. He was very proud of the school he worked at and their
motto painted outside on the wall “Education is Life” said it all to me. What life is there for these children without an education?
We met his charges aged from 4 – 11. (Girls and boys). Lively and shy with the minimum of clothes and no shoes I saw the place they were staying in. Two rooms with dirt floors, mud walls and corrugated iron roof ~ one room containing the frames of two beds. No mattresses or pillows, no covers, just some cardboard and bits of dirty foam. The ten children shared the two beds. Japhet bought food for himself and the children, paid a small amount to the mamas to help him and he also paid a guard at night to look after the school (as the desks and benches get stolen).
Japhet had begun with the help of a friend, to build a house in a nearby village, Ndofe, to house himself and the children. A couple of weeks later I went to visit the building. There is some land around it, and a primary and secondary school nearby. Japhet was hoping to teach at the school and for the children to attend there too. However he could not yet use the house because he could not afford the doors or windows needed. Furthermore, the school would not admit the children without school uniforms and shoes.
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On my first visit to see Japhet and the children I bought some oranges which were cut up and given to the children. On the second visit I took along some orange T shirts which everyone are wearing in the photo.
We decided therefore that Mchungwa, Swahili for Orange tree, would perhaps be an apt
name for our project.
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So far…
Over the months, I have given my support to Japhet and the children and together with
some donations from my friends we have managed to pay for:
- Medicines for two of the children, who were hospitalised suffering from worms, typhoid and malaria.
- New windows and external and internal doors for the new build
- New beds and mattresses for the children
- Money to build essential separate choos (WCs)
- New school uniforms and shoes for the children
- The digging of a well near to the house
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