My Week in Tanzania: Days Five & Six

Catch up on Days Three & Four

Day Five

The confident children of Nkoma

The children at this primary school in Nkoma are a delight. There are so many girls, which is a great sign of development in an area where an educated girl is not worth as much as a girl with no education when it comes time to marry.

In Luguru as soon as my camera came out the children would run away. In Nkoma they fight to get in the shot! I love their playful confidence.

The headmaster of this school is a fresh-faced, enthusiastic young man. He tells us how thankful and fortunate he feels for all the assistance the school has received from World Vision, including classrooms, an office, a water tank, desks and books.

He tells us that because of these improvements, school attendance has increased and children are achieving better results.

Girls from another primary school in Nkoma learn
about hygiene at one of the shallow wells.

Last year, 25 out of 46 students at this school graduated from 7^th grade to secondary school. That number seems far from satisfactory, especially for an area where World Vision is removing its assistance. I asked how many students would have graduated before World Vision’s help. His reply was – at the most – four.

There is a long journey ahead for Nkoma but for this school to go from having 8% of students graduate, to 54% is a massive achievement.

It is so important to look at where these communities have come from and not just where they are, and to give them the grace to continue on their journey.

Some children leave home when they are adults, while some leave home when they are still teenagers. They may technically be able to look after themselves, but they still have some lessons to learn. Nkoma ADP is a mature teenager about to leave the care of its parent – World Vision. However, World Vision will be there to counsel and guide if needed.

Although the initiatives that the community wanted World Vision to help them with have been completed, not all are fully utilised yet.  It is a reflection of a model of development that World Vision has learnt from and has caused us to focus more on empowerment, as witnessed in Budekwa and Luguru.

This is not to say that the achievements in Nkoma have been in vain – far from it. The health centre, shallow wells, the dam, the schools, and so on have set a solid foundation for the community to build on so that the lives of families continue to improve. It is clear that the leaders of Nkoma have the vision for this to happen.

When God appeared to Moses and told him to deliver His people from Egypt, Moses felt so incapable of doing what the Lord was asking. So God  asked Him, “What do you have in your hand?” All he had was a shepherd’s staff – but God was able to use that, even to part the Red Sea.

The people of Nkoma have a lot in their hands, which they can do so much with. I look forward to celebrating these things with them tomorrow at the closing ceremony.
View the achievements in Nkoma on the WVNZ website

Day Six

In my WV gear for the Closing Ceremony

The closing ceremony was quite emotional for me. It was touching to hear how far the community has come in so many areas.

 A community leader shared many achievements;  farmers now harvest 17 bags of maize per acre instead of 4, cows produce 12 litres of milk per day instead of 1, 99% of children attend school instead of 50%. The achievements went on and on. But there are still challenges. So he called on the local government to support the community.

The government officials responded in the affirmative. They say that they are here to ensure that the development work continues and does not go backwards. If the government and the community can work together to make this happen, there will be a bright future ahead for Nkoma.


Seth Le Leu, the Chief Advisor for
International Development and HEA at
WVNZ, but more importantly - my travel
buddy, gives a speech on behalf of
WVNZ and the Kiwi sponsors of Nkoma.
(Translated into Swahili here by
Machibya Mwalla, our excellent host from
WV Tanzania.)

It was wonderful to hear World Vision being honoured by the people. They acknowledged that World Vision worked with people regardless of tribe, religion or gender. This is something that I have told many sponsors over the years so to hear it being testified by those who experienced it makes me so proud.

Most of all, it was moving to hear our sponsors acknowledged. The people know that sponsors are not necessarily rich and they appreciate their commitment to supporting Nkoma.

As a Kiwi, I am so proud that 5000 New Zealanders have changed the lives of 50,000 people, including 23,000 children, half way around the world in Nkoma. The impact of a little country like New Zealand helping Tanzanians who they will never meet will last long after the final dollar is donated.

The Regional Commissioner put it best at the ceremony – “This kind of giving is not about wealth, it is about the heart. If we can learn from this kind of giving, we will be able to move ahead.”

Party time!

Some of the children of Nkoma, sharing
about the changes in their community
in the form of a rap

Now I am starting the long journey home and there is a lot for me to reflect on.

At the beginning of the week, when we arrived in Mwanza, it rained and our driver told us that if it rains on the day that you arrive in a place, it is a sign that you are bringing a blessing. Only the people I have encountered will be able to say whether that has been the case. I pray it has.

This lovely little boy Joseph really liked me,
and/or my camera

How blessed I have been this week! It is a blessing just to be in Africa, this vast and beautiful continent with amazing people. It is a place with so many resources and so much potential. I can understand why many people lose their hearts in Africa, even though I have only glimpsed Tanzania.

Surprisingly, the people who have made the biggest impression on me during this trip is our World Vision staff who live and work in the communities. I could write about them all day long. These wonderful Tanzanians, a few of them from the areas where we are working, are some of the loveliest people I have ever met. They are passionate about seeing the lives of the communities they work with change for the better. Some of them sacrifice a lot to achieve that, including living apart from their own families.

I have witnessed their determination at the beginning of a project, as they come to terms with the many barriers to development and prepare to work with the communities for the next 15 years to create sustainable solutions.

I have seen them struggle with loss as the project enters its final year. These communities are not just ‘projects’ to them, they are friends and family and it is a bittersweet time as they prepare to say farewell.

I have enjoyed celebrating their successes and seen the pride in their eyes as the communities take their final steps towards having full responsibility for their own development.

My final reflection is this –

I have continually been prompted to think of when Thomas refused to believe that Jesus was risen. When he finally saw the Christ with His own eyes and touched His wounds,  Jesus said to him, “You believe because you have seen.  Blessed are those who believe but have not seen.”

Our sponsors are amazing. They believe in what we have seen. 

Seeing an image on a screen is nothing to seeing it in person. Yet our wonderful sponsors trust us, they believe in our testimony and they take action. They take a leap of faith when they sponsor a child, but we need to help them keep the faith by showing  them the impact of their financial sacrifice in the lives of all sponsored children and the communities we serve.

I never thought I would cry for our sponsors while I was in Tanzania, but I feel so privileged to get this opportunity to be here, a privilege that most of them will not have, and now this opportunity feels like a huge responsibility.  I leave Tanzania asking myself what I will do about what I have seen.

So perhaps I have been changed, just a little, after all.

Happy to be home with my proud family

http://www.worldvision.org.nz

My Week in Tanzania: Days Three & Four

Catch up on Days One & Two

Day Three
I have always thought of myself as someone who has an appreciation for the hard task ahead of our ADP staff. Now I know that I was not even close to comprehending the difficult issues they face.

This classroom is now too unsafe to use. 

Today we went to one of the Primary Schools in Luguru. The noise of hundreds of children is such a happy sound. Yet some of them were in classrooms with no furniture, some of the buildings were so unsafe that they were unusable, and instead of having the 49 toilets they require, they had 3. But there were bigger issues than what could be seen.

The children were moved to this classroom,
where they have no furniture.
The class that was in this room now meets outside. 

Only 40% of children in the community attend school and of those, only 50% finish primary school. Children are kept at home to work or look after other children, girls are given over to early marriage and boys have to take cattle to other areas in dry seasons.

We also went to a shallow well, which was not shallow at all. It was deep and dangerous. There, I learnt that the women are the lionesses of these communities. They collect the water, cook for their families and care for the animals. The men are busy – busy getting drunk. Alcoholism is a big problem. Men drink for pride. Men who do not drink are stigmatised.

The "shallow" well.

How do you change a culture? A mind-set? A tradition?

You can build a school but how do you convince families to send their children to school and not to work?

You can build wells, but how do you convince husbands to share the burden with their wives?

I cannot even convince my children to eat all their vegetables.
 

Some of the wonderful people of Luguru

But I see hope. My hope is in the people – in the community leader who has mobilised people to build and plaster classrooms at the school, because he says that the children in his community deserve better, and he has done this without WV’s help.

It is in Elizabeth, the midwife who has worked in the clinic in unbearable conditions for 10 years.

Volunteers hard at work in Luguru

It is in the attitude of so many of the men and women I met who want a better life for their families and are increasingly becoming brave enough to change.

My hope is also in the World Vision staff I have met in the ADP. They are incredible. They know the families and have gained their respect.

 

Some of the incredible staff in Luguru ADP

They have already faced struggles in visiting families to register children and dealt with suspicion that they would be taking the children away, even sacrificing them one day. The process of gaining the trust of the community has been a very long one, and it is ongoing. 

The heart of development is not about buildings or programmes, it is about people and I believe in the people of Luguru.

Not once have I felt like crying over their plight because they are not helpless. They are intelligent, hard-working, and ready to work even harder to change their communities. And they have to be so brave to do this, because this requires taking a risk.

We are asking farmers who have been growing cotton, rice and maize for generations, to try growing millet and sunflowers which is drought resistant. That is so easy for us to ask, but if the crop fails, it is the farmers and their families that will suffer. So our staff have a massive task of growing the confidence in the people they are working with, but they also require grace to allow the people to make their own decisions.

I believe that the staff at Luguru ADP can do this though. They are highly skilled and clearly love this community. They tell me with real conviction that they want Luguru to be the best ADP in the world. I believe they are on the way to making this a reality.
Find out more about Luguru on WVNZ's website

Day Four
We met the ADP manager for Budekwa for a short time the day before. He seemed very flat, no energy, even sad. Something was up.  We eventually realised what was going on when he informed us that there are only two staff in the ADP as of this week. Everyone else had moved on or been made redundant as part of the process of transitioning more responsibility to the communities.

Although this makes sense for an ADP that is one year from closing, it was clear to see that this was a man mourning the loss of his friends, perhaps even experiencing some survivor guilt. We feel so blessed to be here to encourage him as he embarks on this important final year. As we get to know him more he cheers up, laughs and jokes a lot. As he shows us around the community, we see what a capable man he is. We know he can finish this race well.

It is so encouraging to go to a place like Luguru, at the very early stages of the ADP, and then go to Budekwa.

Esther, one of the Well Management Committee
members, infront of one of the 120 wells in Budekwa..

I think of the shallow well that I saw just yesterday, and compare it to the one I have seen today. This well is safe, beautifully cared for and one of 120 in the area. The shallow wells the community once used are now only used for washing clothes and feeding animals.

Water is life. Having access to clean water means that the children do not get sick so often, which means they can go to school, which sets them on a path to a much brighter future.



Another contrast with Luguru is the pride on the faces of the women who are part of the community group responsible for raising the funds to help build and maintain the well.

“We are taking this well somewhere else”, we joke. “Over my dead body” they respond. “You can come and try out the well but you better take your shoes off!”

These women are proud and feisty and I love it.



Me, giving one of the wells a try,
with my shoes off of course

I compare them to the women of Luguru who, when asked, sounded so uncertain as to the difference they could make. In 15 years it would be great to go back and see if the women of Luguru develop the same confidence as these women of Budekwa.

I also saw the community in action through the local mill. Farmers do not have to travel to a mill far away. They can mill their crops locally, and the mill’s profits go towards caring for vulnerable children, particularly orphans, ensuring they are able to go to school.

These are great examples of the community helping themselves. World Vision just has one more year to help them – and then we can get out of the way.
 

The lovely Elizabeth

It was a truly great day that ended on such a high note. We met Elizabeth, a 16 year old sponsored child. This girl is a stunner, Her favourite subject is biology and she would like to be a nurse. The only sadness in meeting her was when she told us that she had not received anything from her sponsor since she was 10, even though she wrote to them every year. In her words, this made her feel terrible. We have to find a way to encourage sponsors to write to their children that does not make them feel guilty, but also does not sugar-coat the reality of the impact this has on children who send annual reports and greeting cards to our sponsors every year, but receive no reply.

However, with the brightest smile on her face, Elizabeth spoke about the changes that have come about in her community through World Vision’s help – from furniture in schools, to child rights – she covered so much in just a couple of minutes.

Once again though, it wasn’t just what she was saying – but this girl who was the triumph. In an area where it is common for young girls to look away when speaking to adults, particularly men, she spoke with such confidence, grace and hope. When I look at Elizabeth I see the bright future in store for her and the other children in her area, a future that would not have been possible without the help of World Vision and Kiwi sponsors.

Elizabeth is the symbol of success for Budekwa.
Find out more about Budekwa on WVNZ's website

 

My Week in Tanzania: Days One & Two

Day One

I started working for World Vision when I was 17 – 3 months after I finished High School.

An NZ Herald article from
my first year at WVNZ

It was only supposed to be a short-term gig while I figured out what I wanted to do with my life. At first that seemed to be working out, as I left 9 months later to study, but I was back just over a year later, diploma in hand.

I am now 33 years old, married with 4 children, and the pattern that I started at the age of 17 has continued. I have come and gone from World Vision for study, travel and babies.

Over the past 16 years of my life, 12 have been spent at World Vision New Zealand.

Since I have been around so long, a lot of the people I work with have often been surprised at the fact that I have never travelled to the field to see World Vision’s work in action. To be fair, I was never in a role that required it, so it was not something I resented. I also did not feel that I needed to see the work for myself because we have a lot of excellent people who do that on my behalf. However, I did have the desire to see WVs work for myself “someday”.

Well “someday” has arrived. I am writing this in a hotel in Bariadi, Tanzania. I was honoured to be selected to represent WVNZ at the closing ceremony for Nkoma ADP.

I feel like I have been travelling for a week just to get here. I have travelled as far as Scotland – but I have never felt further from South Auckland.

Being in Africa is so surreal. Probably because I am seeing for myself what I have been hearing about for nearly half my life.

We drove three hours from the airport to the hotel and I quickly discover why WV needs sturdy vehicles. It is a rough ride most of the way. My eyes were wide open the whole time. I did not want to miss a thing. (Apologies for the Aerosmith reference.)

There are people everywhere! They are walking along the roads, herding cattle, riding bicycles and motorbikes. I kept wondering - Where are they all going? Where have they been? What are they doing?

Tomorrow I will be going to Luguru ADP. This ADP is so new that no children are sponsored as yet. I feel completely open to what may be in store. Although I also feel apprehensive. I am supposed to be advising the staff on filming Child Greeting Videos. What if I don’t do a good job? What if I cannot answer their questions? What if it is just too hot to work?

My biggest fear is how much this trip will change me. I have seen people come back from trips like this and they have been so impacted by what they have seen that they are never the same. I can be scared of change – as evidenced by my employment history.

Bob Pierce - The founder of World Vision

Bob Pierce, the founder of World Vision, prayed for his heart to be broken by the things that break the heart of God. I don’t feel brave enough to pray that right now. Unfortunately, I am pretty sure that I prayed that when I was younger and braver – so I fear that God may remember that prayer and answer it.

When I first became a mother I struggled with working for World Vision because suddenly every child was not just some poor child overseas. They were Lily, Melody, Abbey and Nathanael. I didn’t see strangers anymore. I saw one of my babies.

Although I found a way to deal with that, I am afraid of being overcome tomorrow when I go into the communities. What if I look at these children and start crying? That will be completely inappropriate. So I have decided to set the bar low. If I can get through the day without crying or accidently offending someone then the day would be a success.

Day Two


WV staff show the twins
their Child Greeting Videos

It is strange to think that only yesterday I felt like I was on another planet, because today I learnt that whether you are from South Auckland, or Bariadi – everyone is the same. I saw so much to remind me of home.

For starters I met a pair of twin girls who are fraternal, just like mine, one is considerably taller than the other, just like mine, and they have a sister who is two years younger, just like mine. When we asked if we could film their Child Greeting Video, they said yes, but not in what they were wearing. They wanted to put on some nicer clothes. What child does not want to look their best on camera? When they appeared in their best clothes they looked so lovely.  Later we met a mother who we wanted to film, and she exclaimed,  “You can’t film me wearing this!” I love that. I love that we are all the same.


The Luguru Dispensary

Unfortunately the contrasts in a place like this are startling, none more so than in the dispensary. This supposed clinic is made up of three rooms – one for seeing patients, one for giving vaccinations, and one for the mothers to give birth in.

Today pregnant mothers were coming to the clinic for their check-ups. 100 pregnant women arrive at the clinic every Monday. There are 7 staff who help to deliver at least 20 babies each week and care for all the mothers. They would like to have 12 midwives, but there is nowhere in the area for them to live.

Only 40% of women give birth at the clinic, but they face appalling conditions. There is no incinerator, and even though the women were speaking Swahili, I clearly heard the term ‘placenta pit’.

Most shocking of all is the fact that the clinic is lacking the most basic necessity – water. Women have to bring their own water to the clinic when they are in labour. How can this be a clinic if there is no water? This is incomprehensible.

Elizabeth, the Head Midwife, has worked
at the Luguru Dispensary for 10 years.
She is overlooking the site for the new Health Centre.

Change is coming though. We were shown plans for a new health centre that will hopefully be built in the next year. Several agencies are contributing to this centre, including World Vision and the government. But the most meaningful contribution is from the community. Every family will be making a contribution towards building the centre.

In the past World Vision would have seen the situation at this clinic and built the health centre ourselves. However, that makes it a ‘World Vision’ Health Centre. The community has no ownership of it. Having every family in the community contribute tells them that this is not our health centre – it is yours. World Vision will leave one day, but you will always have this centre.

The children loved looking at themselves on my phone and taking photos with me. (I might have liked it a bit too!)