MUFINDI NEWS
8th March 2021 International Women’s Day: Over the week, we had the pleasure, on Media, to introduce and thank all the Office Staff, House Guardians, Cook, Nurse and Gardeners at the Igoda Children’s Village who work so hard looking after the Igoda Children’s Village and caring for the children so well: Here are Zilipa, ICV Manager; Fausta, Accountant; Uzia, Social Welfare Officer and Nurse Sijali. We were reluctant to leave the men out, so they were thanked and introduced at the end of the week. To see all the staff please click on this link and scroll to see them all. /https://www.facebook.com/OrphansInTheWild/photos/pcb.1843231852501515/1843228259168541/
In January two volunteers visited the ICV and gave all the little children an activity treat with rides on the horses from Fox Farm.
18th February 2021: The ICV had the privilege of visit from David Concar, the UK’s High Commissioner to Tanzania. He was shown around the ICV by FCWC’s co-founder, Geoff Fox MBE, where he met some the children. He said he enjoyed his visit and would come again.
3rd February 2021: We received a grant from The Royal Overseas League for all the ICV primary aged school children to be educated, including all costs, at the Madisi Primary School in Mufindi. This has given us a great boost with the difficulties the Corona virus has created. Our sincere appreciation to ROSL.
January 2021: FCWC launched YAM supported in partnership by the Helsinki Deaconess Foundation Institute in Finland: The disabled often lead invisible lives in Tanzania (and are less likely to attend school or more likely to drop out at a younger age) while young people in Tanzania face an unreliable income once they leave school due to having to rely on informal income generation (with inadequate employment opportunities – 10% of 15-35 yr olds are unemployed and 75% of young people are dependent on seasonal agriculture.
FCWC led the way in tackling the HIV epidemic over the last 15 years but recognise that it has left behind many traumatised vulnerable young children who continue to need our help.
So we are delighted to announce a new partnership between the Helsinki Deaconess Foundation Institute (HDI) in Finland and FCWC in Tanzania enabling us to launch YAM (Youth Agency Mufindi Project) at the start of 2021 with MFA funding committed for 4 (possibly 5) years. The YAM project is designed to help disabled children solve life issues enabling them to lead dignified lives and also to help vulnerable young people to take control of their lives through improved motivation, skills and opportunities. FCWC will implement this pilot project in our neighbouring 16 villages, conducting outreach, needs assessments, rehabilitation, carer training, psychosocial support, Agricultural and Forestry training, entrepreneurship training, and wherever possible also help address gender equalities. Our hope is that once the project is shown to be successful in addressing these needs it is likely to be replicated in other parts of the district, region and country and we will be working closely with local government wherever possible advocating equal development and opportunity for vulnerable children and young people.
To achieve this, we have already established a Youth Project team and are in the process of establishing and strengthening Village Child Protection Committees, VCPCs, helping us to identify and deliver this project support and training and help solve the problems faced by disabled children and vulnerable young people.
We are working with the University of Iringa UoI and TAPCAP (Tanzanian Association for Professional Counsellors and Psychotherapists) to help FCWC by providing expertise in assessing needs, psychosocial support and the training of trainers while at the same time INUKA (Southern Highlands Rehab Centre) will be assisting us with addressing the rehabilitation needs of the Disabled.
The rains in January started with a vengeance making the roads in Mufindi and surrounding areas a quagmire. Getting the children to their schools makes this exceedingly difficult, sometimes impossible! One of the main dirt roads is being tarmacked so this year the roads have not been graded as normal, hence the problem. Mufindi is in a very rural, remote area of the Southern Highlands of Tanzania!
ONCE AGAIN WE WOULD LIKE TO THANK YOU FOR ALL YOUR HELP AND SUPPORT
marion@wildorphans.org
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