Orphans and Street Children in Tanzania - Introduction and description of the charitable projects where volunteering positions are possible 

In Tanzania, there are approximately 4 million children under 14 who are not appropriately cared for (with Tanzania having a total population of 38 million people!). A big proportion of these children are orphans, out of whom many have lost their parents through AIDS. Others have been rejected by unmarried mothers, as children born to single mothers are socially not accepted in Tanzania, or because the single mothers are just too poor to guarantee the basic care (nutrition) of their children. Even if the children still have both parents, they often left their homes because of extreme poverty of the parents, domestic violence which is often caused by the parents' alcoholism or drug abuse, or because of being victims of witchcraft.

Many of these children are faced to live a horrible life on the streets, trying to make a living through begging, thievery or prostitution. Street children can be seen wearing tattered cloth, walking alone or in small groups through the streets of cities such as Arusha or Moshi, sleeping in house entrances or other primitive shelters. 

Another category of children who have left their homes don't actually live on the streets, but they live with their relatives or other families as "children of second class", having to stand behind the host families' own children in terms of nutrition, accommodation and education. Whereas boys usually prefer to live on the streets, this is the typical option for girls. At their host families, they are often abused as "working slaves" and find themselves on the lowest position within society, often being the target of physical violence, humiliation and sexual abuse.

There are however several organizations who support these disadvantaged children and it is possible to volunteer with these organizations. 

All of the centres presented below have a real need for volunteers. They have been started by proactive locals who have put a lot of personal effort into their projects to make them grow to the standards they are offering today. The centres can provide acceptable basic supplies for the children and have gained – in most cases through World Unite! – first experiences with foreign volunteers whom they can introduce to their work and accompany in an appropriate way. However, still today, these centres are struggling with everyday financial issues. We do not cooperate with centres that are already saturated with funds and are not really in need of volunteers. The projects supported by WorldUnite! work closely with local communities and volunteers can get a true insight into the social reality of children in an African developing country.

As the life situations and conditions of some children are not always easy to digest, we try to join older, more experienced volunteers with younger, less experienced participants, so that they can support each other. When planning at which organizations to exactly place our volunteers, we therefore have to look at the other volunteers during your time frame. For this reason, particularly when you book a long time in advance, we will be able to confirm that your volunteering stay in Tanzania, but might not always be able to tell you at which particular centre you will be placed.

A certain exception are the SOS Children Villages which offer almost European standards. They have fully equipped medical centers and schools which can also be used by many children and adults who don’t live at the Children’s Village. At the SOS Children’s Village we offer internships and volunteer positions of more specialized subject areas such as medicine, psychology, social work and psychology that would not be possible to such a degree at the smaller, more local centres for orphans. 

Presentations of the centres:

Yesu Anaweza Center Moshi

(Scroll up to see more pictures)

In 2003 priest Zacharias Donald Yona started every Saturday to provide porridge for free to street children and other children from the area “Njimpia”, a poor part of Moshi town, while listening to their life stories. Within a short time around 110 children showed up regularly.

As he achieved to raise funds, he could afford to have all the kids medically screened. The result of this screening was that only two children were found to be HIV positive and that most of them "only" had easier to solve health problems such as parasites or symptoms of nutritional deficiencies.

After this health check and the following treatments were completed, Zacharias and his wife started their education program: They founded a free pre-school for children from 3 to 7 and arranged financial support to pay the public school for older children. Although in Tanzania public school is free, there are costs associated to attending school such as paying for the school uniform, stationary, books and food. Additionally, Zacharias and his wife started a “Youth club” that offers entertainment and education for children aged 3-13 from Monday to Friday, and for 14-18 year olds on Saturday and Sundays.

The next step was the establishment of a small home for 15 orphans from Njimpia who didn’t have anywhere else to stay. Today, besides Zacharias and his wife, the staff of Yesu Anaweza includes three teachers, a social worker, two cooks, a gardener and a bookkeeper.

Yesu Anaweza is looking for volunteers from the following subject areas:

We have to mention that Yesu Anaweza does not really differentiate between these positions. Volunteers will have to do all of this, and the main part will be teaching (reading, writing, calculating, English) and playing with the kids. The months of June and December are holidays.

Salama Centre

Salama Centre is located in the Majengo area of Moshi Town. It opened in 2009. It is a Community Centre, run by the NGO KAFAO (Kilimanjaro Aid for AIDS Orphans) which is operated as "kinship care" which means that the orphans don't stay at the centre, but with relatives in the Majongo area, for which the NGO is providing capacity building and support, and who have the centre as a point of contact. At the moment, 26 orphan children and around 145 relatives are being supported in this way.

The support includes health care, education, nutrition and counseling.

At the centre, medical checkups such as weight and growth control are being performed, vaccinations, standard medicines and mosquito nets are being provided, and health education given. If it is necessary to consult a physician, the NGO will go there with the child.

The centre also runs a kindergarten which is open Monday to Friday from 8 to 12 for children from 4 to 6 years of age. In the afternoon primary school children are given help with their homework and are given extra classes in maths, english, geography, computer applications and arts. This is being done by unpaid local volunteer teachers, but also foreign volunteers are welcomed to assist. Educational programs such as tayloring, chicken farming and computer classes are being offered to youth and young adults.

The orphan children are regularly being looked after at their host families. Every day food will be distributed to them.

This volunteer position is suitable for volunteers from all related subject areas, including social work. The minimum duration of stay is 4 weeks.

Huruma Women Group

Huruma Women Group consists of 25 women from various villages of the Tella Mande area outside of Moshi town on the foothills of Kilimanjaro. The group is not yet a registered NGO, but a community-based project (CBP). The women are supporting around 70 children and adolescents who at the moment live with other families as "second class children". Most of them are between 10 and 16 years old. The women have rented a simple house in the forest some 8 km outside of Moshi that they want to make a home for around 20 young orphans and street children. 

This is currently not yet possible because of a lack of funds. Huruma is looking for volunteers who have experience in setting up charitable organisations, who have fundraising skills and can initiate the necessary organisational steps.  

http://www.huruma.info   

Kilimanjaro Orphanage, Moshi

Kilimanjaro Orphanage is a home for 28 former street children aged 3 to 9 years at Matindigani Area, around 3 kms outside of the town centre, but easily reachable.

It has been opened in March 2009 by Edward "Teacher" Lazaro who has started a similar project before, which he handed over in 2008 to an American Foundation.

At the moment Kilimanjaro Orphanage only has 2 staff, but the centre would need at least 4 to provide sufficient support to the children. For this reason, volunteers are needed. The task consist in supporting the kids in their daily duties (washing cloth, dressing the children, cooking), playing with them and teaching them basic English, maths, reading, writing and general skills.

Since the start, we have had several volunteers and interns at Kilimanjaro Orphanage who achieved valuable contributions to the centre. Our volunteer Sebastian for instance started an interesting project at the centre to enable the centre to have some income to cover the running costs: He built a chicken shack. The eggs are being sold every day to a hotel which is located nearby.

At the moment, Dr. Greg Higgins, a retired American doctor is volunteering on a long-time base. He has already built a school building, proper toilet facilities, added electricity connection to the centre and of course helped many children of Kilimanjaro Orphanage and other centres with medical problems. At the moment he is trying to purchase a larger plot for the centre at a different location to be able to accommodate more children.

Tuleeni Centre, Moshi

Tuleeni orphanage centre accommodates 48 children and youth aged 2 to 17 years, separated by age. The centre was founded by Mama Flaria Faraja, a social worker.

5 children are aged 2-4 and spent the whole day at the centre. 6 children go to Akili Kindergarten which is also operated by Mama Faraja. It is located just opposite of Tuleeni. Besides the Tuleeni kids, there are a further 13 children from the village Rau (a quarter of Moshi) attending this kindergarten every day. The other Tuleeni children attend primary school or secondary schools.

The volunteers are caring for the children who are staying at the centre and are accompanying the children on their daily way to kindergarten or school. There is one disabled girl, Asha who is attending a special needs school, one volunteer has to accompany her there and pick her up every day. At the Akili kindergarten the volunteers are teaching the kids and playing with them.

The youth of the centre are dying fabrics using the Batik technique. The fabrics are then being used by a women group to make cloth. This is an income-generating project for the 22 women. In total, Tuleeni is working with three women groups (22, 15 and 10 women) who are also breeding pigs.

As a volunteer you can be at Tuleeni Centre, Akili Kindergarten and do activities with the women groups. This diverse placement will give you good insights into African life and the social area.

Mwema Street Children Centre, Karatu

Mwema Street Children Centre Karatu is a community-based organisation (CBO), directed by Pastor Elisante since 2006. Mwema means in Swahili "second chance". 22 former street children (21 boys and 1 girl) live in the centre in three dormitories and besides of accommodation get good, clothing, education, medical care and personal and group counselling. Not far from the home, there is a small school building with three classes, where besides the children from the home 26 further children from the neighbourhood are being educated so they can pass the examination to enter into the public school system.

Mwema is looking for volunteers who can teach maths, ethics and general knowledge. Further Mwema is looking for football (soccer) coaches and volunteers with skills in acrobatics and all kind of handcrafts.

SOS Outreach Programs

The SOS Children's Villages of Dar-es-Salaam, Arusha and Zanzibar carry out outreach "family strengthening" programs which are particularly interesting for professional volunteers from the area of social work.

In Arusha and Zanzibar these programs have been started several years ago. At both places around 600 families in need are supported to improve their life situation. This includes counselling and financial support for the education (school and professional training) of the children, income-generating support for the parents, health care and family planning. In Dar-es-Salaam this program was started in 2007, anyway there are already more than 200 families being supported. 

Volunteers from the subject area of social work can accompany the professionals of SOS and support them to identify families who are potential candidates for the family strengthening programs, to analyse their needs and to work out individual plans for supported families. Swahili language skills are of big help for this work.

In Zanzibar, it is possible to give psychological support to the orphans living at the children's village as well as to their replacement mothers. This is possible for students of psychology as well as for professional psychologists.

The following tasks can be done with SOS:

Initiatives for orphans in the Marangu and Siha District in Tanzania

Siha District is a rural area on the Western slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro. The main village of the area is Sanya Juu, however there are plenty of other settlements in the forests around the village with several initiatives which have been started by locals that are dealing with individuals in need (children, sick, old). The exact numbers of orphan children in the area is not known.

After the parents of the children have died, the orphans often move to the houses of relatives who cannot provide sufficient support to the children because they are for instance too old if they are the children's grandparents, they don't have the financial means, they are sick, or they don't feel in charge.

These initiatives however often lack financial means (many of them are on a zero budget), but also structure and managerial skills to make their ideas successful. One of the more successful centres is the "Hope Evangelical Centre".

Volunteers are needed who can support the members of these initiatives with the provision of support to children and other people in need, and giving them a hand in management tasks. To volunteers in Sanya Juu, we have to mention that they will have to face a high level of poverty and misery. AIDS and poverty-related diseases have wiped out big part of the generation which is in an age capable to work, leaving behind children and old people with nobody to look after. As a volunteer you will be fully confronted with a maximum amount of social problems. The local initiatives are on absolutely restricted financial means, leaving them no other option than only providing psychological support. A further difficulty that volunteers will most likely face is the large difference of mentality and culture between the directors of these initiatives and their own Western pattern of thinking.

This activity is targeted towards experienced volunteers from the subject area of social work, which don't have problems staying at a remote village. The villages are around 60 km outside of Moshi Town; it takes around 1 hours by car and 2 hours by public transport (Daladala). Swahili skills are of advantage.

Further centres we cooperate with are Faraja Orphan Centre in Moshi Majengo, which is a kindergarten for 40 orphan children and children from deprived families, and Neema Orphanage in Machame.