Team Tanzan – 4 months on

It’s been four months since we left Tanzania and we can honestly say that not a day has passed that we haven’t thought about our time in Musoma. It was an amazing adventure and truly a life changing experience for the ten of us, but for the people we met there, life simply goes on.

So why write a new blog now? Well, many of you have been so interested and supportive in what we were involved in that we thought it would be good to update you with what has happened in Tanzania since we left.

We managed to achieve quite a bit when we were there but we couldn’t spend all the money that had been raised in the two and a half weeks that we were there. We therefore allocated the rest to a number of projects and most of these have since been finished. You may remember that we built a goat shed - it's still standing thankfully and is now occupied by breeding goats. Two other goat sheds have since been completed and are well stocked too. This makes such a big difference to the families who own them as they now have a sustainable source of income. We also left money to fix up goat sheds that have fallen into disrepair; including Winifreda’s who supplied us with the goats.

 

Meanwhile, work at Nyanza Primary School has continued and has completely transformed the school. The toilets we were building have been completely finished and the water tank we started is now fully operational providing a vital source of clean water for the whole school. We also left money for an additional water tank to be built to see the pupils through the dry season and this has also been completed. The other soil floors in the classrooms have been replaced with smooth concrete floors and the dusty brick walls have been plastered and painted. These physical changes have made such a difference to the pupils and the teachers, providing an environment that is much more conducive to learning.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 This however wasn’t what made the most significant difference to the children in the school or what made the biggest impact on us as families. You may remember that we started a Porridge Project where we enabled all 450 children (who only have one meal a day in the evening) to have a mug of porridge mid morning. We left Tanzania when the Porridge Project had been going for one week but a month after we returned we were emailed a report by Arthur, the local education officer. He had visited the school one Friday and, where normal attendance on Fridays was about 200, on that day 536 of the 548 pupils were there! Arthur said that attendance has increased from 55% to 95% since the Porridge Project began. What a difference a mug of porridge can make!

 

It is amazing to think that not only do these children attend school more regularly but that they have some food in their stomachs, rather than sitting though classes feeling desperately hungry. Thank you for the part that many of you have played in this. We left enough money to provide for the Porridge Project for a further six months but we have committed to fund this venture on a long term basis. It takes £320 per month to pay for porridge for all 450 children – that is around £15 per day.

If you would like to support this project financially, we have set up a porridge account that some friends and family are already contributing to. A one-off gift or an ongoing monthly contribution would make such a difference, no matter how small. All contributions would be gratefully received by us, but more importantly by the community of Nyanza. If you would like to make a contribution please send money to our Porridge Project Account:

Sort Code 09-01-26

Account No:  14271365

For more details contact us on teamtanzania2016@gmail.com