News

March 2012
Lauren Giffen joined our team on March 5th. Her job is to act as Guest House Manager at our guest house the Friendly Gecko (www.friendlygecko.com) and also to act as an Assistant Manager at help2kids. In the future, Lauren will be responsible for volunteer coordination for help2kids. This is a big job, as we have many enthusiastic volunteers coming each month, and the numbers are growing! She is already proving herself to be a great addition to the team!  

We are delighted to report that some of our supporters, Gabriella B. and African Greenland Safaris (www.africangreenland.com), donated a mini-bus to help2kids in early March. The bus is in beautiful condition and has already been put to great use to transport children to the doctor, do the big market shopping, and take fun trips to the beach. We are so grateful to have the bus and thankful for the very generous donation.  

February 2012
Baraka, Simon, Star, Savera and Selemani joined our help2kids family in February, 2012. The come from different regions of Tanzania and were already known by us or our foster mothers before (from their hometowns).  These children lost their parents and had a difficult life before joining our Children's home. But we are happy to know that they are all HIV negative and passed our medical tests well (besides of some malnutrition problems).

January 2012
Our new Field Manager is Karina Catlin. Karina comes from the United States and has extensive experience working with child-focused NGOs in Africa. Karina will be responsible for making sure that all of our projects – the children’s home, Friendly Gecko Guest House, and our English and computer outreach projects run smoothly and continue to grow. She is very happy to be a member of the help2kids family and is excited to get to work.

Also, Mama Leah, our wonderful Head Mama, has now been promoted to Director of the Children’s Home. As a Tanzanian with natural leadership abilities and a certificate in childcare, Mama Leah is the perfect person for this role. Mama Leah is responsible for the care of all 26 of our children, and also manages the other mamas and the cooks.

December 2011
The help2kids family is getting bigger! We have recently welcomed five new orphans. Angela (6) and Francisca (5) come from Moshi where they were both living without parents but under the supervision of guardians. Selma (6), Riziki (8) and Constantine (9) were living in little barracks in our neighborhood, only with aunts or grandparents looking after them but without any possibilities to take care of them. For more information have a look at this Blog.

November 2011
Taussi, 15 years old, is now living at help2kids Children Home. Taussi is a girl from the neighborhood, who was living in a very poor family. After finishing Primary School at Wamato School, help2kids is now hosting Taussi in the Children Home. Soon we will know if she is admitted to Secondary School. We are all very happy to welcomed Taussi: she is a sweet and nice girl, always smiling and she is very helpful with the Mamas and the kids. All the girls love Taussi and see her as a perfect big Dada (big sister). 

Thanks to Kurt and Marianne (past volunteers from Switzerland), help2kids has received a laptop. We have begun to give the kids some laptop lessons, using didactic programs to go through the alphabet, the number, spelling, counting. The kids are enthusiastic. And we were also very surprised to see how quick they learnt how to use the laptop. The children are enjoying so much the computer lessons that they always ask the volunteers for more! Also the Mamas are getting little curious about this new magic machine! 

October 2011
William was reunited with his family. As we stated in our Youth Concept, “If a child, admitted in help2kids Children’s Home, had the opportunity to return to his own family or to be adopted by a foster family, help2kids would consider this opportunity.” After a long meeting with William’s father and our social worker, we have decided that the best opportunity for William is to be reunited with his family. We will still support him and his family. William will always be in our hearts as a special kid! 

We successfully started our English teaching program at the Wamato Primary School. For the beginning our volunteers teach two afternoons each week. Moreover the children receive a lunch after their classes in the morning. This is very important since for some children this is the first meal of the day. For more information and pictures have a look at our primary school website.

September 2011
Pius is the newest member at our help2kids children home in Dar es Salaam. He is 8 years old and lived with his grand-mother in the neighborhood before. Due to her age and health she could not care enough anymore for Pius. Also no other relatives could be found. Therefore he is living with us now and we are happy to care for him in the future. For more information have a look here: http://www.help2kids.org/waisenhaus/blog/blog-post/2011/09/29/an-environmental-week.html.  

Together with other organizations we organized an evironmental event for our children. We tried to make them aware of the environmental problems with different games. In the end they had to clean up a beach together with our volunteers. We will continue to educate them in this direction, to sustainable and environmental-friendly behavior. The environmental problems in Dar es Salaam are huge! For more information have a look here: http://www.help2kids.org/waisenhaus/blog/blog-post/2011/09/29/an-environmental-week.html.   

July 2011
Pupils of the Viktor-von-Scheffel-Schule in Blumberg, Germany, collected money for the help2kids children in Tanzania. They produced soap and sold it a local market. THANK YOU A VERY MUCH / THANKS A LOT! On the picture you can see the handover of the money to Frank and Maria Hakenjos of help2kids.  

To support our foster mothers with their daily work we employed an additional "part-time" mama. Her name is Sara, she is 27 years old and comes from Iringa, a town in the mainland of Tanzania.

June 2011
A new boy (Donadi Francis, 6 years-old) has moved into our orphanage. He is Suzie's brother who has already been living with us for more than 6 months . (For both children it was probably one of their happiest moments in life to see each other again). It must have been one of their happiest moments when they saw each other again. We are also very happy that Donadi has joined our family now. The father of these two children died very early in their life and the mother, after having been injured in a car accident, was not able to take care of them anymore. 

May 2011
After a car accident during her holidays, our Director Cassandra Seidler decided to return home to her family. We are very sad but we respect her decision. She needs to recover now (from contusions and rip-problems) and to receive the best medical treatment possible. The whole help2kids-familie wishes Cassie all the best and hopes she gets well soon! Thank you for your big efforts during the last few months!
Our new Director will be Francesca Tettamanzi (before Assistant Manager). She has already been introduced to all necessary work during the past few  months. Patrick Juma Mwenda will become our new Assistant Manager. He has been working for help2kids for two years now and proved himself to be highly reliable and trustworthy. We will soon look for additional support for our management team in Tanzania. 

April 2011
Francesca (24), from Italy, is the new Assistant Manager. She has worked in other African countries before, volunteering with orphans in Kenya and Tanzania and running small social projects in Rwanda. Before joining help2kids, she was a fund-raising intern within the UN. We are very happy to have her on board!

March 2011
More children moved into our orphanage: Johnny, William, Happy, Augusti and Nuru.  All of them come from tragic backgrounds: Johnny's parents, for example, died during the explosion of a military ammunition base and Nuru's family had problems caused by her albinism. We are happy to take care of them now and offer them a better future. 

February 2011
12 new children moved into our orphanage. These are Dorie Mnyalape (5), Dotto “Brightness” Mangare (6), Eliuta Kisinga (11), Evaristo Ngenzi (9), Happiness Masuke (6), John Mangare (4), Kulwa Mangu (6), Neema Stephen (6), Nuru Mnyalape (11), Pascal Robert (8), Prisca Justin (7), Suzy Francis (9), Winston Yona (6) and Zainabu Hassan (7) .
Have a look at our children-site for more information.

We would also like to welcome our new Center Manager Cassandra Seidler (California, USA)! She joined help2kids on 15th December 2010. We are convinced that she is the ideal person for this job. She has a wealth of experience in social work with children in Africa (she took part in various non profit programs in Africa) and has a degree in psychiatry (specialized in behavioral therapy and children with cognitive disorders). Consequently she possesses all the skills and know-how needed for this challenging and demanding job.