Context
Tanzania is an economically poor country which is undergoing rapid change as its population adjusts to the rewards and demands of modern life. This adjustment often creates social problems and individual tragedy. The immediate cause of many such difficulties may be misfortune or the chosen lifestyle of adults, but the burden of such family problems can so often fall on young children.
There are many modern social changes which have an impact on young children living in the Kilimanjaro Region around Moshi. For the great majority of these children there is family prosperity, happiness and opportunities [e.g. widespread schooling, an extensive network of health facilities], which were not there fifty years ago. There is plenty of evidence of progress in Moshi and the surrounding rural areas over the last fifty years. As I first visited Chaggaland in 1973 I can personally testify to that.
However, some young children are the casualties of ‘development’. Post Independence modernisation has weakened the strong bonds of the traditional extended Chagga family. As there has been rapid population growth on the middle slopes of Kilimanjaro, which are the traditional home of the Chaggas, there is a land shortage there and many Chagga men have migrated to Dar es Salaam or elsewhere in search work. Sometimes the wife remains at home with the children. Sometimes the husband takes a second wife in the capital, and the original wife & children are neglected. Traditionally if a mother dies, the orphaned children receive care from within the extended family, but many modern families no longer accept this duty. In particular, a second wife may well reject the children of the first. The rapid spread of HIV in the last twenty years has further aggravated the problems of child care.
The nearby hospitals sometimes have babies which have been abandoned. A significant number of mothers, sometimes weakened by poor nutrition or HIV, die during delivery – and the infant is not claimed. In other cases, if a baby is born prematurely, that infant is kept in the hospital for postnatal care. If a mother is unable to pay the hospital bills then she may simply disappear. Yet another problem is that school students may come secretly to give birth and then subsequently return in secret to school leaving the newborn at hospital. The consequence of all these tragedies is that there is no shortage of unwanted babies within Kilimanjaro Region.
The Project Partner
Upendo Children’s Home is managed by the Missionary Sisters of the Precious Blood. Their particular mission is to be and to live with those who are suffering and the marginalized. Many under their care are women or children, although ‘youth’ is an important aspect of their concern. They started a children’s home in Tanzania as early as 1934 at Kifungilo near Lushoto. When this was well established a Nursery Nurses Training Centre was added in 1958. However, the relatively inaccessible location in the Usambara Mountains was not an ideal site for such an institution, so in 1966 the Sisters moved both the Children’s Home and the Training Centre to Moshi. The Precious Blood Sisters have a long-established reputation for child care work in this part of the world.
At present the Administrator for both Upendo Children’s Home and the Nursery Nurse Training Centre on the same site is Sr Immaculata Kavishe. She welcomes any interest and enquiries concerning the Sisters work at Upendo.
The Precious Blood Sisters at Moshi are best known for the Upendo Children’s Home or “Upendo Nyumba ya Malezi ya Watoto”. At Upendo there are 49 young children aged between 2 months and 6years. Seven of these young children suffer some form of disability in addition to the trauma of having been left by their parents. The Sisters regard it as their vocation to take good loving care of such youngsters. The particular concern is the very young, so when children reach the age of seven they are transferred to a different environment. This is the ‘Save Our Souls’ [SOS] Children’s Village in Ubungo, Dar es Salaam.
The complications of such care can most easily be seen by examination of a few individual stories.
For example, Lucy was born on 4/11/2002. Her mother died soon after delivery, and she was brought to Upendo when she was just 3 months old. Her father, who suffered from mental illness, visited her a few times in 2003 but has not been seen since. Lucy is quite an alert girl who is now attending Upendo’s kindergarten. Another child is Andrew, who was abandoned in Himo town and then brought to Upendo in February 2003 by the Ministry of Social Welfare. At the time he was 3 months old. His parents have never visited him and are not known by Upendo. The young boy was a late crawler, a late walker and was slow to learn how to talk. He continues to show signs of mental confusion. As he grows older the Sisters are concerned for his future, because SOS does not have the facilities to accept disabled children. There is already a problem of Andrew being aggressive to his younger peers. Godbless was born in Arusha on 19/2/2005 and abandoned in the hospital by his mother. He was found to be HIV positive, so he was taken to the ‘Village of Hope’ in Dodoma, where he was cared for by Italian Sisters. After medical treatment he was considered cured by November 2006, and then came to live at Upendo. Michael was born in April 2001. His mother died two weeks after delivery, and his father is missing. In his first year he developed meningitis and suffered a seizure. He is now partly paralysed. For a long time he was only able to lie in bed, but after years of care and physiotherapy at Upendo Michael is now able to sit up and can speak a little. Teresa and Aurelia are twins born in October 2006. The mother is very poor and without a husband. The father was studying at college in Moshi, but he returned to Zambia before the twins were born. Subsequently, the mother contracted breast cancer and needed a mastectomy in September 2007 at a cost of Tshs 300,000. While the mother undergoes further treatment against cancer, Upendo has agreed to look after the twins. There are many more personal tragedies which comprise the work of the Sisters at Upendo.
Another aspect of the Sisters work is the residential Nursery Nurse Training Centre – or “Upendo Chuo cha Elimu ya Malezi ya Watoto”. Here there are now 43 young women who are training to be nursery teachers or workers in care homes similar to Upendo. Theirs is a two year course, which includes child care, cookery, tailoring, basic health as well as English.
It is the policy of Upendo to be as self-sufficient as possible, particularly in terms of food needed by over one hundred residents there. Thus, Sr Immaculata wishes to develop the small garden and farm on site as well as producing food from two plots at Shirimatunda and Kikavu, both within 5 miles of Upendo.
Project Proposal
In January 2008 Sr Immaculata received 2 donations to further the good work at Upendo. One donation wa [approximately £4000], which came from the English-speaking Catholic church, ul. Radna, Warsaw. A second donation of £850 came mainly from St Edwards Justice & Peace group, Whitley Bay, UK.
There are many possible investments which could improve the lives of the children at Upendo, and Sr Immaculata is still investigating the best way of spending these two gifts. However, an initial spending policy has already been developed i.e.
- Half the donation should be spent on a substantial project. At present two main lines of enquiry are being made. One is to improve the water supply and storage facilities within the Upendo site. Such work could comprise additional ‘water harvesting’ [collection of rainwater from the roof] facilities. Another possibility is to purchase additional storage tanks, which cost about £600 for a 10,000 litre tank. It would be possible to purchase several such tanks with these combined donations. On the other hand, it may prove to be more efficient to invest in a concrete underground storage tank. Sr Immaculata will undertake a study of comparative costs in January 2008 so that a decision can be made soon after these funds have arrived in Moshi.
- It is agreed that a minimum of 25% of this grant will be spent for the direct benefit of the 49 young children in the care of the Sisters. This money may be spent gradually over the course of 2008 as needs arise. It is likely to include: additional milk supplies, rice, and other food supplements. There are 10 childcarers in addition to the 4 Precious Blood Sisters at Upendo and each carer earns between Tshs 70,000 & 80,000 per month. Thus labour costs are about Tshs 10 million out of a total budget of approximately Tshs 16 million for the Children’s Home. From these figures it can be estimated that the annual cost for each child at Upendo is approximately £125. As the Sisters have no control over when children in need are brought to them, there is a fluctuation in the actual number present at any one time with 60 being the maximum. Thus, it has been agreed to spend this part of the money as the need arises.
- About 20% of these donations will be invested in improved food production at Upendo itself or on the plots at Shirimatunda or Kikavu. A likely investment is an improved poultry house as the present one is unsatisfactory. Sr Immaculata wishes to increase production of eggs & chicken for both sale and consumption at Upendo, where there are over one hundred people resident. She is also experimenting with onion production on a small 1 acre plot above the irrigated land at Kikavu. There are also possibilities of greater food production and tree-planting at the Shirimatunda plot.
It is hoped that by March 2008 Sr Immaculata will have decided how exactly to spend these donations, and that she will report back to Sustainable Global Gardens & the donors her various investment decisions.
Project Progress
On Friday 15th February SGG returned to Upendo Children’s Home to check on any progress made so far. By this date the following funds have been received in the Upendo bank account in Moshi :
§ Tshs 4,578,209.46 /= from ‘Polmo’ received on 22/12/07
§ Tshs 1,878,037.12 /= from SGG received on 21/01/08, and
§ Tshs 5,701,800 /= from ‘Krzystof’ received 25/1/08.
These are all the donations expected from SGG contacts. Altogether it means that Upendo has approximately 12 million Tanzanian shillings, about £5,400 to invest.
At the last meeting of SGG & Sr Immaculate, which was held on 17th February, these funds had not been spent. However, the spending plans had been developed from the earlier meetings in January. The intention now is to spend these funds for the following developments at Upendo:
- guttering and 10,000 litre water tanks to be placed so that water-harvesting from the two largest roofs [the Training Centre and the Administrative Block] can be done in order to improve Upendo water supply;
- the 4 acre plot at Shirimatunda be connected to the town water supply, so that irrigated vegetables as well as grevillea & fruit trees can be profitably grown there;
- the construction of a new poultry house at Upendo so that 200+ poultry can live under better conditions and egg production be increased. This development is to improve the nutrition of over 100 people who eat daily at Upendo:
- at least 25% of the funds should be given directly to the orphans in the Children’s Home. Most of these funds will be spent on food supplements as and when they are needed. As the number of orphans fluctuates it is agreed that these funds can be held in reserve until December 2008;
- in the unlikely event of there being any spare funds in December, the remaining money will be spent on the purchase of 10,000 litre water tanks as water supply remains a problem here at Upendo.
NB
Sr Immaculata and the other workers at Upendo all recognize that the Children’s Home received a substantial donation in 2008. Nevertheless, the running costs of looking after these abandoned infants is also high. As an approximate guide it can be assumed that the cost of each child is £10 per month, so with about 50 infants being in care at any one time the running costs of Upendo are about £500/month. On this basis the Precious Blood Sisters are requesting a grant of £3000 to cover just running, not capital costs for the next half year.