A fantastic group of girls from St Margaret’s Bushey have been in Mbeya, Tanzania this last week. They have been helping in so many ways. Below are a few of the facebook posts and photos from the trip.
They finish with Grassroots tomorrow and will go trekking for a few days. Friday morning another group of young people arrive, who are from Bishop Luffa School in Chichester. They will be serving in Mbeya for a fortnight.
This picture was from the welcoming meal at the Karibuni Centre, first evening the St Margaret’s group was with us.
First night blog: Great day with St Margaret’s Bushy. Feeding programme, buying bikes for students to go to school, buying blankets for very cold children without anything to keep them warm in the freezing evenings.
Second Day: Today has been a day full of feeding programs, water filters and blanket distribution. The feeding programs happen once a week for all the children on the sponsorship program (daily for pre school), today though, we had children who weren’t sponsored turning up for food (this is not unusual). Because of this, we ran out of food. 100% more children turned up wanting food. There were children turning up who were so skinny, others who had full bloated belly’s full of worms. We always make more food then the amount sponsored, but the need at times is overwhelming. The blankets are important to give out, especially at this time of year as it gets so cold in the evenings – even cold for in the UK! All those that received blankets were overwhelmed and so appreciative of the gift. If you would like to sponsor a blanket for a cold child it costs just £5! The students from St Margaret’s did a grand job entertaining the children, handing out the food and helping the children wash their hands before eating. Thank you so much for your support.
Fourth Day: Church was fun with the girls from st Margaret’s entertaining the congregation with a song and dance. After lunch we presented 7 secondary students with bikes to enable them to get to school. They were soooo grateful. We have another 51 to give out…..thanks to the students from Northfields secondary school. Grassroots football team were also delighted with some new kit. Now deciding if we will watch the world cup!
Fifth Day: School visits this afternoon in mbeya Tanzania….so many children….80-100 in a class
Sixth Day: Also today we introduced water purifying equipment bad water being the cause of much illness and death plus come face to face with malnutrition. Race is on to save Esther, at 2 1/2 She looks under 1
It was very funny to see the girls carry chickens for over 40mins over bumpy dirt track roads before delivering them to families suffering with HIV.
Distributing blankets to families in need…
Day Seven: Delivering water filters in Swaya (a small village miles from everywhere) was an experience. Living in such basic conditions is so hard. Dirt floors no beds children sleeping in all their clothes in order to keep warm. No electricity and little food…so hard. Great to see the beginning of the new cookhouse being built – the mud bricks have been made and are they laid out to dry in the sun.
We also interviewed more children to add to the child sponsorship scheme. And organised for more bikes to be distributed so that sponsored secondary students can get to school without having to pay for buses.
