Finally holidays!
22.06.2011
Dear all, finally the new blog is online! And this time is again Francesca to keep you updated with the comings and goings of the past days.
First of all, let me introduce Amandine, the new Assistant Manager. Amandine is 24 years old and is from Belgium. Before joining help2kids family, she worked in different social tourism projects in South America and West Africa. She will mainly care for the establishing of the new Guest House (www.friendlygecko.com). We are all very happy to have her here and to get more support!
New people coming…old people leaving. Our German volunteers Kristina and Janina are back in Europe. We want to send them our deepest gratitude for all the support and appreciation for the amazing job that they have done with the kids. The world map finally looks amazing. Check out some pictures of Kristina and Janina achievements with the kids. Once again, asante sana and karibu tena (thank you very much and welcome back any time).
Finally the rain season is over, which means a decrease in kids affected by malaria. In the past weeks we still had some children suffering of these common skin swellings and we actually hope to find a diagnosis and good treatment soon.
Now the children are home from school, they will be on vacation until mid of July. This means that our super-tasked volunteers Mathilde and Johanne are putting a lot of efforts in organizing classes. The school system in Tanzania is still on the way to develop and not really good for the moment. That’s why one of help2kids’s biggest aims is to sustain and improve the kids’ knowledge and school performance. In the past days, we organized different lessons, such as geography, science, English and mathematics. Simba (lions), kobe (turtles), paka (cats) and twiga (giraffes) are the 4 groups in which the kids are divided for the lessons.
Before the beginning of holidays, all our kids did their final half-term examinations at school. The test was very difficult and with several subjects like grammar, English, science, mathematics, reading and writing. After some days of wait, we have received the school tests’ results and we are really proud of the children. Some of them did an astonishing job indeed; for example our super Evaristo was the second best scholar out of 140 kids in his class. Also Zainabu and Pascali had really high scores (number 6 and number 9 out of 140 kids). In general, all the kids performed very well and we will keep going with our lessons in order to improve as much as possible their performances!
One of the problems that we are trying to tackle now is the safety issue with Neema and Nuru, our two albino girls. In fact the school that they are attending now is a little far (approximately 20 minutes walking) and not very safe because of lack of guardians or fences. In the traditional popular beliefs people affected by albinism are discriminated because of their differences and can be very dangerous for them to walk-stay alone. That’s why we are now trying to find a protected school very close to the orphanage in order to avoid any threats to their safety.
Before saying goodbye, I invite you all to visit our Guest House website www.friendlygecko.com. The Guest House now looks really nice and we are ready to host guests. Our task is to make social tourism in Tanzania possible, in order to sustain and support a deep development in this country. So, spread the voice!
Here you can fine some brand new pictures
That’s all for this blog. Also Christian from help2kids Switzerland came visiting us in Dar es Salaam this week. Thanks for your support, in the past and in the future!
Francesca
Director Tanzania
