Majengo celebrates 10 year anniversary
Majengo Children’s Home in Tanzania is celebrating its 10-year anniversary.
From that long ago day in March 2007, when Dunedin’s Lynn Connell found 52 orphaned kids squeezed into a dark, leaky, mud floored makeshift daycare to today, when 85 youth between the ages of three and 18, once the most vulnerable children in the rural area of Mto Wa Mbu, Arusha, Tanzania, live in their very own home on 10 acres of government gifted land as one big happy family.
Beyond food, shelter, education, sports, security, stability and medical care, the goal is to provide healthy growth and development, specifically geared to each child, to help build self-sufficient and contributing members, even future leaders, of the community.
Thank you to Creemore and area residents for their ongoing support. Over the last 12 months two children finished college and starting their careers, 14 children went into secondary school, seven children finishing primary school and 62 children enrolled in English primary school between kindergarten and Grade 6.
Exciting new projects include a shiny new infirmary with all of the necessary tools and medications; a new kitchen and sink system: meeting our hygiene and sanitation levels at the centre; a new water system: cleaner and better water pressure to service our three big dormitories for best washing/cooking and drinking needs; two new grain silos to fill up at harvest time with one year’s worth of beans and corn at the lowest cost; A sturdy new Truck to replace the dangerous and rickety 16-year-old vehicle.
Majengo is also welcoming an experienced new manager, Neema, who spent the last five years as lead social worker in charge of 10,000 adults and children in a refuge camp on the boarder of Burundi and Tanzania. We are thrilled to have her heading up our wonderful 22 strong local Majengo team.
Here in Canada and the US, we’ve amalgamated our expertise, with enthusiastic new board members on both sides of the border, to enhance our financial systems, fundraising and marketing efforts to meet our annual budget of $350,000.
Majengo will be at Miller’s Dairy Day this Saturday, July 8, to celebrate a decade of success and promote Milk for Majengo, to help buy two dairy cows and a small barn.
Connell will be there from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. to talk with you about the kids, and tell you first hand how much your enthusiasm and gifts have changed the lives of 85 kids in faraway Tanzania. She will have some African jewellery and fabric with her and will be accepting donations.
Majengo wouldn’t be the home it is today without your generosity and support. Again and again, thank you Creemore friends and founding donors for your ongoing support and expertise for the last 10 years. Majengo has come a long way.
For more information visit majengo.org, or contact lynnconnell@sympatico.ca or simone.leehamilton@gmail.com, 416-951-6529.
Submitted by Simone Lee Hamilton, with Lynn Connell.
