2021 IN PROGRESS (JAN - APRIL)
Pamoja Tunaweza (Together We Can!)
To begin this update, it is worth repeating three aspects that are pivotal to FWF’s work in Tanzania:
FWF strongly believes in working WITH people, rather than FOR people. Our motto is ‘Pamoja Tunaweza’ - Together We Can. This means that, with few exceptions, we ask for a significant contribution from villagers that ensures their sense of ownership of, and responsibility for, their project’s outcome. This often results in the village paying for labour input, providing labour-intensive building inputs (such as bricks, digging trenches etc.) and establishing a functioning village committee to supervise the project.
The exception to this rule is the situation where the one obstacle to initiating a project is the lack of money with no other local input required. The health clinic equipment purchase initiative and the Afya ya Mtoto (Health of the Child) projects are good examples of this - see below. These projects, demonstrate clearly the dire consequences of poverty, and the only way forward to fairness is through financial support.
FWF expects absolute transparency in all monetary transactions. This means, firstly, we do not expect to pay above-normal, fair prices for project inputs. It is not our purpose to enrich traders, tradespeople or government officials. To this end, we almost always produce our own budgets - thus avoiding the temptation for others to inflate prices. We also keep our working costs to an absolute minimum. Zero wastage of funds is a sine qua non for us.
In 2019, FWF established the local NGO 'Improving Tanzania Foundation' with our project manager Henrish Madambo as its Chairman. Our aim is to localise the image of our projects and so ensure further cooperation and understanding from local government officials and those who would potentially benefit from the projects.
Happy chickens, happy farmers
The projects we continue to fund are many and varied. In the past few months, we have:
Connected water to three villages;
Provided monthly food packages for 52 malnourished children (Afya ya Moto);
Continue towards completion of the building of three health clinics, a women’s ward and nurses' home;
Have begun building toilets in two primary schools;
Have begun building a second classroom for a school we completed two years ago;
Have supported two women’s groups (20 women in total) in establishing, in keeping with high animal welfare practices, an egg production business - Happy Chickens Happy Farmers;
Are providing desperately needed equipment to health clinics in the Usambara mountains;
Connected solar electricity to Mpanga health clinic;
Continue to advise 40 plus farmers in Mambo village regarding cow and, recently, calf welfare practices within the Happy Cows Happy Farmers project. The calves are beginning to arrive after we provided a group bull in the village in mid-2020. The farmers have committed to keeping their cows happy (for example, every cow and calf must have a name) and have begun to produce healthy calves.
Furthermore, we have undertaken:
Lessening Period Poverty and the effects of HIV/AIDS
Period poverty is omnipresent in Tanzania with one manifestation being girls frequent absence from school for a week to ten days every month due to menstruation. We are currently delivering Australian-made Days for Girls (DFG) kits with the support of the local government HIV/AIDS co-ordinator in Lushoto to obviate this situation.
HIV/AIDS remains a debilitating illness in Tanzania with approximately 5% of the population infected. Anti-retroviral medications are generally available and free - providing people can afford to get to the central health clinic which distributes them. Pregnant women are mostly tested and prevention measures are taken to avoid infecting the baby during birth - mostly, but not always, successfully. AIDS is strongly stigmatised in Tanzania. That just exacerbates the problem for those infected - particularly by promoting denial and ostracism.
The DFG kits are distributed to HIV+ girls who invariably live in single-parent families. They either live with their mother (the father having abandoned the family) or their grandmother (the father having abandoned the family and the mother having died). Life is tough! To give the girls a chance at a better education and thus a better life, is a very worthy outcome.
We are currently looking into the possibility of establishing an HIV+ women’s group to produce similar kits locally. This would also give the mothers and grandmothers who are raising these girls, an income. A win-win outcome.
We also work with the same co-ordinator (Isovati Kivuyo is her name) on another project. Namely, we pay for national medical insurance for HIV+ children to ensure that, should they become ill, they need not worry about where to find the money for treatment. We recently enrolled 50 such children in this programme and, working with Esuvat, will expand it this coming year.
Receiving national insurance cards
Supporting health clinics with equipment deliveries
Last November, FWF visited 36 health clinics in the Usambara Mountains to ascertain their equipment needs. It was of no surprise to us to be able to note the absence of such basic equipment needs as delivery beds, sterilisers, blankets, blood pressure monitors, mattresses, ward beds, solar electricity, baby weighing scales, delivery kits and other diagnostic needs. The clinics simply lack the means to provide what the invariably dedicated staff would dearly wish.
The 36 clinics treat approximately 10,000 patients and deliver approximately 700 babies per month. In December 2020 we began to provide equipment and have in the ensuing months been able to equip 25 of the clinics. We will continue to work our way through the remaining 11 clinics by the end of March 2021. There remain over 100 more clinics in the Usambara region that are in similar need.
Our intention is to resume inspections during April 2021 and slowly work our way through the remaining clinics during 2021.
Reducing malnourishment in children
Our Afya ya Mtoto (Health of the Children) program is currently feeding 52 malnourished children (aged 12 months to 5 years) at a cost per child of approximately $15 per month. This programme requires the children to present once a month at one of two local health clinics to be weighed and assessed thanks to the amazing dedication of Dr. Makamba (Mtae) and nurse Lucy Nyambura (Mpanga).
The child is accompanied by their mother who then receives nutrient-enriched flour, cooking oil, dried fish, peanut butter and soap for the child’s benefit for the coming month.
Since beginning last April, we have brought eight children back to normal weight. They will all continue on the program for a further six months in order to ensure there are no relapses. We intend to expand this program this year by organising in other villages. The need is, indeed, wide-spread.
One unexpected result of this project was the appearance of children who also have other serious conditions which, if left untreated, would leave the child badly exposed. A lack of weight gain over a month is definitely a red flag that all is no well. There may be clear reasons as to the lack of weight gain. However, recently, we discovered three such children whose families are too poor to take them to a distant hospital for specialised treatment. We are in the process of addressing this situation.
Incentivising schools to abolish corporal punishment
Schools in Tanzania are invariably in a state of disrepair and are overcrowded and understaffed. It is not unusual to have 80-100 students per classroom. The need for support is great.
Over the years, FWF has renovated classrooms, built toilets, connected water, and provided sporting equipment etc. to schools.
Chapa (corporal punishment) is rife in Tanzanian schools. In 2017 we were first alerted to its existence by the Peace Corps volunteer in Kalumele. We believe that the fear and impact on self-confidence that the violence of chapa induces, more than offsets any positive impact we might otherwise have to the students education. Thus, our requirement, before we begin to support a school, the school must eliminate chapa.
And again in the interest of transparency, it is not good enough for the school to just claim cessation. We require the banishment of all hitting sticks, an announcement of the change to the school assembly and to the parents and to the village council, the setting up an alternative functioning disciplinary system plus a trial period of three months. We do provide support to the teachers if needed.
We generally find schools open to this change. We believe chapa's time has come and that schools just need a nudge to embrace alternative forms of discipline. We recently had a win at a school in Lushoto which has over 1000 students. After an initial meeting with the 32 school teachers (an unusually high teacher:student ratio) in November to talk through the issues, we received no commitment. Indeed, there was a memorable moment when one teacher walked out! But the head of school was sympathetic. We subsequently delivered a number of footballs and netballs to the school to give a hint of what would be possible with cessation. Two months later, after another meeting with Henrish and the local Head of Government, the school embraced the change. The school is still in the probationary period but, all being well, we will soon be looking at some major work there.
The teachers’ spontaneous burning of chapa sticks in Mkundi ya Mtae primary school.
Connecting water in Makole village
In April we worked with Makole village to connect water to their Secondary School. The village provided 3 rolls of piping and dug the 1.5Km trench. FWF provided 5 rolls of piping, connectors and the labour costs for plumbing.
