A Children’s Home Preparation for Christmas

13.12.2014

It has come to that part of the year when school is out for the rest of the year and the children come out to play with broad smiles on their faces in anticipation. With Christmas upon us, the Children’s Home has been a hive of activity with help2kids board members and volunteers providing lots of festive activities to keep the children happy, entertained and active during the holidays. Kurt and Marieanne, two help2kids board members from Switzerland, have spent the last two weeks in Tanzania with the kids of the Children’s Home baking up a storm of cookies and ginger bread men and creating beautiful and glittering Christmas decorations for the home. By the end of last week, the kids had create Christmas cookies to feed a whole army as well as lot twinkling ornaments, decorate paper Christmas trees, glue paper chains and cut out snowflakes and paper dolls. These Christmas decorations were then hung on the first ever Christmas tree at the Children’s home and the outside Banda. Kurt and Marieanne are truly a blessing for the children of the Children’s Home with the amount of time and resources they spend in making this Christmas really special for the kids at the home. This also goes to the rest of the help2kids board of trustees who are really inspirational in the time and effort they put into fundraising for the Children’s Home and other help2kids project and providing the necessary resources and support in Malawi and Tanzania to help and care for children in need.

So in relation to the above, what goes into the preparations of creating a special and magical Christmas for the children of the Children’s Home? Well for the right ingredients to create a loving and merry Santa Day, one needs:

1. First and most importantly – Love and Care
2. 31 beautiful, courageous and cheeky children
3. A big, warm and loving house and home
4. help2kids Volunteers
5. help2kids board members such as Kurt and Marianne
6. help2kids staff such as Aunty Mari or locally known as Aunty Bata (duck) by Glady
7. The love, care, support and cooking of the Children’s Home Mamas
8. Lots of energy for the things to come
9. Cookie and Ginger Bread Man baking
10. Lots of dough for such baking
11. Lots of chocolate, especially Swiss chocolate (Yum) to put on the cookies
12. Lots of sparkling sprinkles and sweets to add to the chocolate
13. Lots of coloured paper, sparkling tinsel in different colours, string, glue, wire, glitter and creativity
14. Music to dance and sing too
15. Children’s Day at the beach
16. Watching Frozen at the Friendly Gecko and singing along to the songs
17. Watching Frozen again 🙂
18. Sodas
19. Football
20. Summer Rains
21. Education Sponsorships
22. And last of all, Africa  

Besides making Christmas decorations, the children will have swim lessons at a Landmark swimming pool, trips to the beach, and lots of activities with volunteers such as dancing and singing to the latest African pop music and being tutored by their volunteer mentor in a number of engaging educational games. They have also spending a lot of time playing and looking after the latest additions to the Children’s Home, Lucky Ducky and his friend. The children save Lucky Ducky after a crow dropped him near the front of house. The children have cared for Ducky Lucky while the volunteers have built him a new home next to Prince and Kiko (our two rabbits).

Until the next help2kids Tanzanian blog, the help2kids staff in Tanzania would like to say Merry Christmas and have an awesome and happy new year. Don’t forget to visit our Facebook page, website and Twitter account for update news on the activities we have in store for Christmas and children from the Children’s Home still needing educational sponsorships.