May 2011

Pictured: A Mother and her child are visited as part of the Home Based Care program.

CHILDREN’S VILLAGE
Every two weeks the staff at the children’s village has a meeting where issues in raising the children are discussed, and solutions to problems that arise are presented. Recently a specific staff meeting about nutrition was held and hosted by Peace Corps Volunteer and Foxes’ NGO volunteer, Meredith Pinto. Meredith prepared a tutorial on what kinds of foods are important for children, and what proportions of foods should be served to healthy children. An example of portion size was given as an actual serving of healthy food was prepared so the guardians could see what types of food, and how much food to serve the children on each given day. Meredith used nutritional information from a packet of information written in Kiswahili that was prepared by USAID, Heifer International, and the Tanzanian Government.

COMMUNITY OUTREACH:
Home Based Care
Volunteer Meredith Pinto has taken over as Home Based Care coordinator after original coordinator Dr. Abdallah Maganga was called back to the government system to do more work in Mafinga town. This month she hosted the first of many staff meetings including all of the volunteers. The volunteers had been working for two weeks, and came to discuss some of the issues they had all seen. The meeting included a guest from the local Care and Treatment Center (CTC) who gave more in depth teaching on caring for wounds, and spoke about the need for compassion in this service.
Meredith, and Justin Dominguez also visited with home based care volunteers in the village of Kidete where they saw first hand what kind of work the volunteers are doing. The two volunteers, Obonye and Serophina, showed them various different patients with varying illnesses including HIV, sever bronchitis, and podoconiosis which is better known as mossy foot.
The goal of this program is to streamline the work being done at the Mdabulo Care and Treatment Center and to educate the masses on how to use the resources there. We also hope it encourages a return to the culture of helping your neighbor that has been present here in Mufindi for generations, but has been wavering with the devastating effects of HIV and poverty in the area.

Milk Powder Program
Part of the Home based care program will eventually include the milk formula program. The milk formula program is designed specifically to halt the vertical transmission of HIV from Mother to child. Two new cases came to the NGO this month. One, a three month old infant who’s mother is HIV positive and two months prior became sick with tuberculosis and could no longer nurse her child. The only way the child could survive was through this program. Another infant, two days old, was literally brought to our doorstep after his mother had died after child birth. The milk formula program saved the lives of both of these children.
Currently the milk powder program is funded by African Book box, but longer term funding efforts have already started including efforts to make connections with the companies that manufacture the milk formula.

HEALTH CARE
Dr. Leena Pasanen
Dr. Leena continued her world famous service in Mufindi with her final two visits before taking her annual leave to Finland. She held clinics at the Health facilities in Luhunga and Mdabulo, and she helped with in-patient care at a ‘CTC day’ at Mdabulo when hundreds of patients came for their monthly HIV treatment regimen. She also held a clinic in the village of Ilasa as part of the outreach program. Ilasa is an isolated village that is 8 kilometers from any health facility. In other words, a three and half hour walk. For people with sick children, this is a potentially life-saving service Dr. Leena has provided. She also visited patients in their homes in the villages of Igoda and Mlevelwa ho were unable to leave their beds. Dr. Leena’s service continues to inspire us all.

EDUCATION
Igoda Community Hall
This month a seminar was held on the benefits of improved farming techniques. 40 people from eight surrounding villages participated in the seminar. The agiriculture officers from Mdabulo and Luhunga wards were present, and they taught the values of better growing methods, and harvesting for maize and beans- the staple product in our area and much of Tanzania. The families then were encouraged to use these methods in the farms at their own homes, and to lead as examples of good farming for their neighbors to follow. We hope these lessons will be shared, and that once again the community hall will bring the community together for the purpose of sharing education.

April 2011

Pictured: Elia enjoying the fruits of his labour after the Easter Egg Hunt from 2010.
Photo by Bridget Marchesi

THIS MONTH'S REPORT IS TAKEN DIRECTLY FROM EMAIL REPORTS FROM FOXES' NGO VOLUNTEER JUSTIN DOMINGUEZ


CHILDREN’S VILLAGE
Easter is a HUGE holiday in Tanzania. At the Children’s village, all of the children were invited to Fox's lodge to drink soda and participate in
the annual Easter egg hunt and water balloon fight with the guests.
For the Easter egg hunt, all of the older children staying at the
lodge took a younger child from the orphanage (and the older children
from the orphanage took a younger child from the lodge) to help lead
around to find eggs. For the water balloon fight, all of the fathers
(including a couple male guardians from the orphanage) stood in the
middle of a circle while all of the kids blasted them with water!
After all of the fun at the lodge, everyone came back to the orphanage
and cleaned up for dinner. We had a wonderful meal (so much food!)
and afterward everyone piled into the living room to watch Chitty
Chitty Bang Bang with the donated VCR before heading back to their
houses.

COMMUNITY OUTREACH
Home Based Care
In April, the three-week Home Based Care volunteer training was
completed. Ten people from the five villages in Mdabulo Ward were
selected to participate. The selection process was quite involved;
Peace Corps Volunteer, and Foxes’ NGO volunteer Meredith Pinto worked with Dr. Maganga and they first approached each
village government. They asked the government for the names of 4
people whom they thought would be compassionate and who are already doing similar volunteer work. Then those 4 people from each village (20 in all) came to take a test about HIV and Health so the NGO could get an idea of their baseline knowledge. (In addition we could find
out if they could read and write as well; an important prerequisite!)
Home Based Care is already in the government health care system, they just don't have enough money to train and employ the number of people needed to really make the program effective. As it is, there is
already a shortage of nurses and doctors in the country, they're
focusing on recruiting and training more of those higher level
specialists first. But the program has already been developed, and
all of the training materials are available. That meant all we
had to do as an NGO was find good people in the village and pay for
their training.
Two government trainers came from Mafinga to give the training. After
3 weeks of classroom time, book work, and practice in the villages,
they 'graduated' and received their certificates. The volunteers
learned about symptoms of HIV/AIDS and all of the opportunistic
secondary infections people get from the virus. They learned about
TB, nutrition, mother/child health, and how to communicate
effectively. They are now able to go to their neighbor's house,
gather clues from that person's environment, and counsel them on all
of the most common health problems one encounters in the village.
This program has, without a doubt, the opportunity to impact almost
every person in every village. And on a personal note: while we are
most assuredly starting out small, there is no end to the positive
growth this program could realize in the village.

EDUCATION
Igoda Community Hall
The NGO hosted its second basket weaving meeting at the Ukumbi, and 27 women from Igoda village came to improve their skills by learning from our best weavers in the village. In addition to the women improving their weaving skills (and thus making their baskets more marketable to the outside world), they seem to really enjoy the camaraderie and group support they receive at these meetings. The women stay all day, weaving and talking with their peers.

A seminar was also held at the Ukumbi to teach local church leaders about HIV/AIDS, and what they can do to mentor the members of their
congregation. Nineteen church leaders (6 from Luhunga ward and 13
from Mdabulo ward) came and were taught about what HIV/AIDS is, how it's transmitted, and how they can help their community by talking
about the problem in their sermons, going with their members to get
tested, and to talk about ARV's and the importance of taking the
medicine exactly as prescribed.

March 2011

Pictured: Construction progress of House Number 2, the fifth house at the children's village.
Photo by Justin Dominguez

CHILDREN’S VILLAGE:

Building of house number 1 (The final house to be constructed) at the orphanage has hit the pause button this month, as the rains have made it difficult for us to clear the foundations. We will have to wait for the rains to let up, then burn the rock away before foundations can be dug. The building phase of house number 2 (the fifth house to be opened) is continuing well, with roofing slated to begin as soon as roofing carpenters are available.
This month we had a new addition to the children’s village come to us in a more traditional sense. Meida, a 19 year old girl who already has a child, delivered her second child at the Mdabulo health facility near the end of March. Meida has been long associated with the NGO and our projects, as she is an orphan herself. She is trying to find her voice as a disenfranchised youth. She has been living at the Children’s Village for almost a year now, and in that time she has been living with strong women and positive leaders in the community who aim to help her in her life. We are hoping she will make good choices going forward, and we can that she will be influenced positively by having strong women around her. She will be moving back to her own home shortly, and she will attempt to try to earn her own income through one of our income generating projects. As she leaves our Children’s Village program, and becomes part of our Community Outreach program, we are happy that she and her newborn are healthy, and we are hoping for bright days ahead for her and her family.

COMMUNITY OUTREACH:

Home Based Care

From the beginning we have referred to Home Based Care (HBC) as the service that Dr. Leena provides by going house to house and treating patients in their homes. Recently however, our plans to have a community outreach team have led us to use the term in reference to a team of volunteers that will help the community outreach program become a sustainable locally run program that will be ongoing for decades to come.
This month, facilitators coordinated with Peace Corps Volunteer Meredith Pinto on a program designed to train 10 volunteers from the 5 different villages in the Mdabulo Ward. The trainings were funded by donations from African Book Box Society. They will last 28 days, and each volunteer will be taught comprehensively about the national guidelines for home based care volunteers. The volunteers will be trained on a variety of useful topics such as personal health, HIV prevention, and emergency first aid. Each volunteer will be tested at the end of the training. Ideally the NGO will get an opportunity to further train volunteers, and extend the training to more volunteers from all of the surrounding 16 villages. Further trainings might include permaculture gardening, and child and maternal health.

HEALTH CARE:
Mdabulo Hospital
A huge fundraising effort for the Mdabulo Hospital project has started this month and will last into August. Four men are hiking the Appalachian trail in the eastern United States in a fundraising effort that is impressive and daring to say the least. The four men chose our NGO as a project worthy for the cause of their hike after Erik Christensen visited the project in April of 2009 when he was a peace corps volunteer in the country. Erik, and his three friends can be followed on their ongoing blog: GoMHH.com. They are hoping to emulate the successful story of the Greenstock family from the UK who donated 10,000GBP through Orphans in the Wild which has gone towards this project. A new refurbished Doctor’s house, and a new roof on our L-shaped operations wing of the hospital has been constructed with that donation.

EDUCATION
Luhunga Library
The Luhunga Library is a secondary school library funded by African Book Box Society that we hope will be just as successful as the teaching library at Igoda Primary. At Luhunga, the library will include some laptop computers that have been sent through Orphans in the Wild through a connection with an organization called I.T. Africa. The computers, along with guided instruction on site, will help make the library a tremendous learning space for secondary school children. The library is nearly complete with window frames being placed in at the end of this month, and all shelving installed. We are excited to open this project, and we look forward to seeing how the school will use this invaluable resource.

February 2011

Pictured: Sila Ng'igwa shares her basket making skills at the Igoda Community Hall with a group of women affected by HIV who are caring for orphaned and vulnerable children.

CHILDREN’S VILLAGE:
This month we’ve seen the children’s village role as a nutrition center increase as more and more children in failing health are being brought here to be seen by Dr. Leena Pasanen, so they may ultimately regain full health. The following is an entry from Jenny Peck (Community Outreach coordinator/Orphanage Manager) who describes a moment this month where this aspect of the children’s village was particularly in use:

It's 11pm, and I'm sitting with 2 really sick babies in our makeshift neo natal ICU, and while I wait, I thought I'd document some of this…
One baby is 2.36kg at nearly 2 months, and has severe thrush, the baby’s mom is HIV positive with TB, admitted to the hospitial, the father is nowhere to be found, but the baby has all signs that she is also HIV positive, and she was born a month early. Baby's mom is from a very disfinctional family that don't seem to care enough and don't understand enough on how to take care of premature, sick babies, so Rose is here with us, eating every 2 hours followed by an application of nystatin for the thrush. Unfortunately, we can't get her tested for HIV usuing the infant test until monday, but even then, it takes 1 month to get the results or more. We are hoping to start the baby on ARVs on a clinical basis. I'm with her night nurse making sure she stays awake to feed her and applies the meds correctly this first night.
Baby number two is actually three years and some months, but is in really bad shape-not sure if she's going to see the night through. This baby’s Mother has 6 kids and is pregnant with another (she thinks, but has yet to go to prenatal clinic to find out how far along she is....again, a job for Monday). Baby is so dehydrated that her eyes are rolling into the back of her head and are all sunken, skin was so dry it just stayed in place when you pinched it, she is just skin and bones. The baby’s Mom is here with baby and I'm on first shift of night duty, as all our other helpers are with other kids at other houses. I'm here until 130am, then another volunteer comes in. Lucky we are 4 today, so the responsibility is shared a bit. Baby is sleeping now, with a ng tube, and looking a lot better than when she did this afternoon-her lips look wet!
We have one mama here with her baby that looks like it has fetal alcohol syndrome, and is fairly underweight, but getting better, just here for observation mainly and to teach mom about good child care practices, healthcare, nutrition etc.... Another baby here is malnourished- her mom has 6 kids, and is a widow, so we are doing the same thing for her- good health practices etc. The community is starting to really see the Children’s village as a safe place to bring their child, and a place where there is hope for recovery from some of these illnesses that our local health facilities can’t manage currently. We’re so lucky to have Dr. Leena with us, and it’ll be so great to have that Mdabulo Hospital Project finished!


COMMUNITY OUTREACH
Dr. Leena brought a guest with her this month from Ilembula Hospital who specializes in working with People living with HIV/AIDS. His name is Bryson and he has started quite a few projects with groups of people from the villages around he was kind enough to offer his services here in Mufindi this month. Bryson has led a group of over 200 HIV positive people in the Ilembula area into starting their own Civil Society Organization (CSO). A CSO, is a locally initiated organization designed to gather a group of people towards a common goal and help develop the community. A registered CSO is also able to get certain benefits from the government as a group. A leading example is food subsidies when inclement weather creates a harsh environment for farming.
This month, Bryson visited Mufindi and a new CSO has been formed- Urafiki (Swahil for friendship, or friends). Dozens of members of our community arrived at the community hall in Igoda village to discuss the formation of this group, and we are pleased that many of our friends- the leaders of the community outreach program, as well as former patients of Dr. Leena’s- have become a major part in the new CSO. We will be excited to see how this progresses, but in the very least this new group of people with a formal bond will create even more unity in the fight against AIDS in our community, and will be a great stride towards bringing the community together at a very important time in the community’s development.

Income Generating Projects
Basket weaving has long since been a tradition in Wahehe culture. In recent years Foxes’ NGO has purchased baskets from disadvantaged women who are supporting their families with the proceeds. Until recently only a portion of the baskets collected have been of great quality. The baskets were purchased as a way of not just giving handouts to families in trouble, but encouraging community members to work for self-sustainability.
This past year, however, baskets have become an artform in our area. Several women have perfected the art, and a new style of incorporating local cloth into the weaving process has made for a beautiful outcome. The baskets seem to be of high enough quality that they may be sold internationally. This month some of the better basket-weavers hosted a seminar at the community hall in Igoda to not only teach the skills, but to start having the basket-making process a shared experience where women may use the time to share stories and experiences.
This month the batik making group had a breakthrough as well, as returned volunteer Kate Ney made some new samples that will be displayed in the UK and US later this month in hopes that there will be orders made for batik so that the batik group may have many contracts and their art finds its way to even more homes.

Home Based Care
From the beginning we have referred to Home Based Care (HBC) as the service that Dr. Leena provides by going house to house and treating patients in their homes. Recently however, our plans to have a community outreach team have led us to use the term in reference to a team of volunteers that will help the community outreach program become a sustainable locally run program that will be ongoing for decades to come. In Tanzania the lack of health facilities leads to a lakc of education on how to properly use medical facilities. Patients are clogging up the existing system with minor problems such as colds and headaches, whereas other patients wait far too long to see a doctor. The home-based care program is designed to provide the community with the proper education about health care to further increase the quality of health care in our area. The plan has been crafted after several meetings with board members of the NGO here in Tanzania, and after consulting with many professionals that have started their own HBC programs already. A couple of these professionals were brought to us through Dr. Leena, and their advice has been priceless. We also drew on lessons learned from a trip to Mbeya where two HBC programs were visited. After meeting with the District Medical Officer, and lots of logistical help from Dr. Maganga who also has experience with HBC, the first trainings will begin next month, and volunteers will become certified HBC volunteers and will work out of the Mdabulo Hospital system.

HEALTH CARE
Dr. Leena Pasanen
This month Dr. Leena was able to bring about a real medical miracle when a 10 year old boy from the village of Ikaning’ombe was brought to her during one of her clinics. The parents brought the boy to her telling her he was blind. The boy had been taken out of school, and was staying inside his home most days. After consulting with her contacts from her own Ilembula Hospital, Dr. Leena arranged for a visit for the boy and a guardian. The optomitrist there, Dr. Eric Msigomba, anssessed the situation, and after a surgery on his cataracts, the boy went home to recover. After just a short period of time the boy was able to regain complete sight, and is now back at school. After this inspiring story, it is exciting to us to know that as we become more able to complete our Hospital project, countless orphaned and vulnerable children like this boy, will be able to be positively affected by health care advances in the area.

EDUCATION
Igoda Community Hall
On February 16th, 2011 Foxes’ NGO hosted an all-day event at the Igoda Community Hall, encouraging students from local primary and secondary schools to think of their own future plans in life. The event, titled “Career Fair,” was aimed at Standard 7 primary students, and Form 4 Secondary Students, and was organized by returning volunteer Kate Ney. Leaders from all walks of life were invited to share their stories of how they got involved with their business, or their job, and after an initial shyness wore off, the students in attendance got very involved. Yasinta Lunyali was on of the leaders of the event, and she presented on her life as a care-giver at the Igoda Children’s Village. She was among other professionals from the tea, timber, and tourism industries, as well as local shop keepers, and health professionals. The event was well received, and requests for a repeat of the event have already been made, and we thank Kate Ney for working with Titus Nyunza and Treda Pius on organizing this very educational day in Igoda.

January 2011

Pictured: Felista Mpangile, 11 years old. Her story will be remembered but not repeated as a new CD4 Machine is coming to Mufindi.
Photo by Bridget Marchesi

CHILDREN’S VILLAGE
Tree orchard planting has begun, and a cabbage patch has been started as well this year, as we continue to try to start projects that will hopefully bring an income to the project over some time. This will not only bring down running costs of the children’s village, but will also teach the children the value of generating their own income.

We had an amazing story as part of our Mother and child health program through the children’s Village this month. Kwini Mliwa is 18 months old and is HIV+ and has only her Mother, elderly Grandmother, and aunt as family support. Kwini’s Mother, Jeni Koga, is HIV+ and has Tuberculosis, and Kwini’s Aunt is also sick with HIV. When Kwini was a young infant she suffered from Meningitis, which may have caused a stroke on the left side of her body, and since then Kwini’s left foot has bent inwards almost like a club foot. Throughout this last year we have introduced Kwini and her Mother to all of our volunteers who are experts in the field of physiotherapy, or people living with physical disabilities, and Kwini’s Mother has been taught exercises to help Kwini’s physical development. Foxes' NGO volunteer Dr. Leena Pasanen also has given Kwini a shoe that has helped with her physical rehabilitation. For two weeks (during Dr. Leena’s stay in January) because Kwini wasn’t gaining any weight, she came to the Children’s Village to get healthier, and her Mother came as well to learn good nutrition and better hygiene. On Dr. Leena’s last day of her January visit she gave Kwini and her Mother permission to return home to Mkonge village as her health had improved, and Kwini has since been enrolled as a member of the milk formula program which has helped her gain weight. The miraculous development this month came as the exercises, the corrective shoe, and good nutrition, have combined to help Kwini to stand. She is now able to walk with the assistance of holding on to furniture or her mother’s hand. This means that there is a very high likelihood that Kwini will be able to walk as a young girl.

This month we were blessed with a return of a special family from Canada to whom the NGO owes an incredible debt of gratitude. Kate and Patrick Ney and their three children, Josiah, Caleb, and Mathew (Foo), were with the NGO at its infancy back in 2007, and they are greatly responsible for the programs that are underway now, and most importantly perhaps, for the opening of the Children’s Village. The Neys were here at a very critical stage of the NGO’s development and they now have come back for a visit, and it is so encouraging and refreshing to see how well they are remembered. It has been almost 2 and half years since they are here, and yet so many in the villages around remember them and the work they’ve done. Dr. Patrick is helping with the medical side of things at the Children’s Village between Dr. Leena’s 10-day visits, and Kate is starting projects with many of the other children including letter writing and arts and crafts.

COMMUNITY OUTREACH
Income Generating Projects
The Income Generating Projects are also getting a boost through Kate Ney being here. Armed with materials brought from Canada, and fresh ideas for batiking, the batik project is up and running again after the return of leader Christina Mvinge (Mama Rehema) who is back from maternity leave. The Batik project will hopefully revitalize this woman’s group and get them a reliable income again.
Another income generating project consisting of women’s groups is our groups of women that have been making baskets. The quality of these baskets has really improved in the last year, and the inclusion of using batik material in the weaving of the baskets has really been a hit. One woman, Sila Ngigwa, has transformed this project and has turned this into a great art form. We’re hoping to expand our markets even more this year as the quality has improved, and baskets are no longer being purchased just out of pity.

HEALTH CARE
Mdabulo Hospital, and Care and Treatment Clinic
Dr. Abdallah Maganga officially joined us this month officially in his role as consultancy General Physician and Care and Treatment Clinic Director. He will be working at Mdabulo five days a week, and comes to us at such a critical time as the Care and Treatment Clinic gets underway and building at the health facility continues. His start this month was facilitated by a Canadian donor which sponsors him for his first year of service, and through a timely donation from a an Orphans in the Wild UK donor which enabled us to refurbish his housing accommodations. The UK donation also allows us to put a roof on the extension to the health facility we have made that will include an x-ray room, surgical theatres, a dental room, optical theatre, and all the functioning rooms a hospital needs for proper operation.
The biggest news we’ve had in a long time came this month as we found a way to get a CD4 Machine actually purchased. Through many inquiries on behalf of African Book Box across Canada and around the world Anne Pearson, Ruth James, and their friends and families put in a lot of valuable time making connections and getting us a great deal on a machine that will be the heart of the Care and Treatment Clinic. Steven Lewis, the famous former UN Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa, was of assistance himself eventually making the last connection through the Clinton Foundation, and finding a way for us to get the machine unfettered by normal bureaucratic hoops. Deliver may happen as early as next month, and in the meantime we are all breathing a large sigh of relief as this will eliminate the unnecessary deaths of children like Felista Mpangile, and others who have slipped through the cracks of an overwhelmed system.
The Clinic itself is now the host of the CTC days that are now occurring twice per week, and this means that the build built through funds from Mufindi Orphans Inc. donations is now in use! Soon the facility will be in full use with the crown jewel of the treatment plan in place.

EDUCATION
Luhunga Secondary School
We were blessed again this year with a visit from the African Book Box Society ladies- Anne Pearson and Ruth James! These two have been visiting us regularly since 2005, and this year they were able to stay in the Protea House- a house they’ve sponsored that they’ve graciously opened up for volunteer use.
A huge book order was made this year with many books going to local primary schools and many more going to Luhunga Secondary School Library. Construction on the library at Luhunga Secondary is nearing completion as the ceiling has been installed and all that remains are the window shutters, doors, shelving and furniture, and then it will be time to bring on the books! Candidates were interviewed by Anne and Ruth themselves this month, and Leudi Mtende
will be this school’s librarian full-time, and the Luhunga Secondary School board will determine the schedule. The Luhunga Library will also be furnished with computers donated through connections made by Orphans in the Wild, and we are hoping that IT teachers will come from a University in Iringa called Tumaini University that is considering sending students for their field experience to this school to be teachers. This will be a dynamic learning facility that we hope will increase the quality of education in the way that Igoda Primary has improved since the NGO’s interventions in recent years.

Igoda Primary School and Igoda Community Hall
Results from the national exams have come out and Igoda Primary School is still turning out results that are among the best in the nation’s rural schools. Out of 158 schools in the Mufindi district, Igoda Primary placed 20th in 2010. In Iringa region, the school placed 50th out of 853 schools! This year we hoping to start the process of sharing these successes and having some of the projects at the school replicated at other schools. The first of these projects may be the school kitchen program that has been a tremendous success. We will see if other schools can use the Igoda model to generate success in other schools therefore improving education for countless other children in Mufindi and hopefully beyond.
This month Anne Pearson and Ruth James organized a performance of Princess and the Pea, which was performed by Igoda Primary School Students for over 300 grandmothers and grandfathers as part of the monthly tea event. All Igoda School students attended, and so over 800 people saw the performance! The performance was very exciting and the children had such a great time performing. It was great to see the cross-generational event go off as such as a success!

December 2010 (2 year recap)

Pictured: One of the many performances from the World AIDS Day event at the Igoda Community Hall. It was a great month and a productive year for the villages in Mufindi.

CHILDREN’S VILLAGE
At year’s end we now have 54 children at the children’s village- 37 boys, and 17 girls. In 2011 41 of the children will be going to school ,with 4 in Secondary School. 7 children are HIV positive, and are all registered at the Mdabulo Care and Treatment Clinic. There are now 4 houses in operation, and two more yet to be completed. A Social Center is being built which will include a social hall of sorts to house a kindergarten so children who are 5 and 6 years old won’t have to walk the 5km to school each day. The social hall will also of course bring the children’s village together as a focal center to the place. The hall will host ceremonies, parties, and possibly even a movie night with children from the surrounding area invited to come as well. In the coming year we hope to expand the social center to include a day-care and playground, a small NGO office, a clinic for Dr. Leena Pasanen and other health volunteers who may come with the NGO, and a computer lab room that may also host other vocational training facilities.
Our newest addition to the family includes a family that has joined us this month from the very poor village of Mlevelwa. Evalina, Eva, and Anderson are with us for a short-term period of time while their mother re-builds their home with village assistance.
This month the children from the children’s village took part in their first community service project. All children over the age of 9, helped build a new house for two men in a far away remote area of Mlevelwa village. These men are mentally disabled, and the community has greatly appreciated the help for this family.
The fruit orchard project progressed nicely this month with all field preparations complete, and whole digging and tree planting slated for the new year. This project will bring down the weekly cost of 100,000/= spent each month on meat and fruit, and eventually may even bring an income to the projects if ideas like canned fruit or jarred fruit come together.
Orphan’s house number 2 construction is well underway with building of the walls up to the tops of the window frames. With four houses in operation now, a new house is needed as we are currently over-capacity. Talks with the village leaders of the whole of Luhunga Ward have started as well to initiate ideas about how communities can expand their own capabilities to care for children in the village. As the capacity for caring for children at the children’s village is not much higher than 70, and then development projects in health and education start take its positive toll on community development, it is the hope and ambition of the NGO to have the surrounding community enabled and ready to care for all of its children in their own village setting.

COMMUNITY OUTREACH
Up until now the NGO has been using the term ‘Home Based Care’ to describe the work that Dr. Leena has done in the villages whereby she visits patients in their homes to give health services to those who are too weak to go to health dispensaries or clinics. We have been recently doing some research into the term and have learned it better describes our community outreach program, and how we connect with the local community and get our services out to the people most in need.
We have had a system that connects with the local village committees such as orphans and vulnerable children committees, to get a full picture of the families most in need in the village. This has been greatly successful, but has required a lot of effort and time. We have gotten to a very comfortable level of development for the program where steps can be taken to turn this program over to the village. Starting slowly the plan is to train local home based care volunteers in each village to streamline all of the work and further get a picture of how the NGO could work with orphan care in our 16 villages. The volunteers would go through a training, get an official certification, and would be the ongoing eyes and ears of the NGO in the villages where an automated system would be in place to deliver needs or make connections within the villages to further bring community involvement into play so that more and more orphaned and vulnerable children may be cared for within the villages. This program is currently at the conceptualizing stage, but could mean big things for orphan care in Mufindi.

HEALTH CARE
Dr. Leena Pasanen:
While her efforts in Mufindi are the most valuable asset to the NGO that Dr. Leena possesses, she enjoyed the role as ambassador this month as she spoke at an international gathering in her home country of Finland for World AIDS Day ceremonies. Dr. Leena spoke at a conference, and she told the story of Felista’s passing earlier this year- the 11 year old who died due to complications from HIV/AIDS. It was a death that was completely preventable, but highlighted the steps we still need to take to get HIV treatment to this area. Dr. Leena also had numerous media engagements including quite a few interviews on TV and on radio for countries from around the world.
Dr. Abdallah Maganga
Dr. Maganga has been the District HIV/AIDS Coordinator for Mufindi District for the last two years, a responsibility that is certainly hightened by the fact that the district is one of the most HIV prevalent districts in all of Tanzania. He approached the NGO this month asking for a position at Mdabulo as he was scheduled for a promotion, but in a more remote and distant district of Ludewa. Dr. Maganga’s home is Mufindi, and he asked if he could stay and be of use at what will no doubt be its most important Care and Treatment Clinic for HIV/AIDS. By a stroke of amazing luck and timing a fundraiser in Canada produced the funds for an entire year of sponsorship for Dr. Maganga to work at the Mdabulo Care and Treatment Clinic, and be a General Practitioner at the Mdabulo Health Facility, thus giving the staff a much needed qualified boost. Almost simultaneously, a donor from the UK came up with a donation for the referbishment of a nearly abdanoned building that has been refurbished into a beautiful modest home on the compound of Mdabulo which has enabled us to allow Dr. Maganga to start in January! His skills and experience will be immeasurable as the area is so badly hit by HIV, and so many other opportunistic diseases affect the population in a manner that is overwhelming to a very small group of health professionals at Mdabulo.

EDUCATION
Igoda Community Hall
World AIDS Day was a smashing success again at the Igoda Community Hall was once again more than full with people attending the event. This year’s event marked the one-year anniversary (December 1st) of the opening of the Community Hall last year by the Iringa Regional government, and since it’s opening the hall has been a host to a bevy of events both educational and entertaining for the surrounding community.
This year’s commemoration of World AIDS Day had a very local feel and a jam-packed timetable of performances, plays, songs, speeches, and emotional moments. There were somber moments of rememberance of those who we have lost to AIDS, and there were sobering moments as well, such as the stories told by local men and women of how they became aware of their HIV positive status and how it has changed their own lives, but not ended them. There were comical moments, as which was provided by the Mdabulo comedy/drama group who enacted the story of a couple being affected by HIV. Testing was made available again at the kindergarten, and overall the event was a great success. It will be great to see what next year brings at the Community Hall!

November 2010 (2 year recap)

Pictured: Dr. Leena Pasanen awaiting her patients at the dispensary in the village of Mkonge, Mufindi.


CHILDREN'S VILLAGE:
After a depressing October, life went on as they say at the Children’s Village in the month of November. We had some good news in the form of a couple of Mothers going home with their child as part of our new Mother-Child health program. The Mothers stayed a short time at the Children’s Village, as their child was very ill. Lucy Mvinge, who suffered from Tuberculosis herself, is now back at home in Igoda village with her daughter who is no longer dangerously ill.
As plans continue to find either income generation for the children’s village or self-sustaining practices to reduce ongoing costs, the children’s village took a big step in that direction this month as plans were enacted to start the first fruit orchard at the children’s village. Currently, the cost for meat and fruit at the children’s village is 100,000Tsh per week. Although this is not a huge sum to cover the needs of 50+ children, it will still be a cost-efficient use of money to finish this project and get some more self-sustainable practices at the children’s village. The goal is that over time costs will become more manageable, and children will learn more and more about self-reliance, as well as they will learn skills that help them in adult life.
This month also meant the completion of roofing on the Social Center social hall at the latest building project at the children’s village. The Social Center will be the heart of the children’s village giving it a focal center, and will encompass everything that the NGO does. The Social Center will have a small hall for performances, ceremonies, and even a kindergarten for children to learn so that they do not need to walk the 5km or more to school at the age of 6 and under. The second stage of the social center will include a small day-care center for those families partaking in income generating projects at the children’s village as well as if successful, families from the nearby village can use the facility for day-care purposes as well as they farm during the day. The Social Center will also have a small NGO office, and finally at the final stage a small clinic for Dr. Leena Pasanen and other volunteers to host clinics for Igoda Village, as well as keep medicines and other resources to be used at the children’s village. Also on the final stage a computer lab is planned where vocational skills will be taught to the community and its children.

Community Outreach:
A comprehensive Milk Formula program has started this year, initiated by funds from a grant acquired by the NGO from the Dar es Salaam Goat Races Charity event. This program directly addresses the transmission of HIV from Mother to child- otherwise know as vertical transmission.
HIV+ Mothers in Tanzania are advised to exclusively breastfeed their child until the age of 6 months, where a substitute is to be introduced. There are currently 28 families on the program, and we’ve seen some dramatic examples of infants getting healthier, and HIV transmission being prevented. Each visit the guardian is expected to bring the child’s clinic card that displays the child’s weight.
So far, the program is continuing well, and consults with UNICEF, USAID, the WHO, and the Helen Keller Institute have shown that this nutrition program has been designed correctly for the environment and culture.
Milk formula is too expensive for almost all families, and so this program is enabling families to keep their children healthy, and free of HIV. As more and more efforts are made towards bringing access to treatment of HIV/AIDS in the area, preventative efforts will be more and more effective and therefore important to the long-term development to this community that is so highly affected by this disease.

Health Care:

Dr. Leena Pasanen
Dr. Leena’s incredible service continued this month with her monthly clinics for children with difficult problems at the health facilities in Ibwanzi, Mdabulo, and Luhunga. She also held a clinic in the villages of Igoda, Ikanga, and Ikaning’ombe where she made her office at the village government offices. She made home visits in the remote villages of Kilosa, Kidete, and the Igereke B area of Luhunga village. She also helped to see patients during a busy ‘CTC’ day at Mdabulo, seeing those patients who arrived while all other staff was kept busy by the 100s of HIV+ patients that arrived that day. Dr. Leena also continues to bring a steady stream of other volunteers with her as well, who are able to offer their services and specialties as well. We are very proud that Dr. Leena is with us and gives her time to the 16 villages in the three wards that surround us.

Ibwanzi Health Facility
The UK-based organization Solar AID has responded again to a proposal written by Foxes’ NGO in Tanzania and has provided the Ibwanzi Health Facility with Solar Panels providing the facility with much-needed electricity. This comes at a great time, as the addition fully compliments the developments Foxes’ NGO has added to the facility including a 30-bed in-patient ward, a water-catchment system, and countless resources collected and sent via container from abroad. We are happy this partnership continues to have a positive impact on projects initiated by Foxes’ NGO, and it is encouraging to have this support for the people of Mufindi.


Education:
Igoda Community Hall
Events at the Community hall are continuing with great attendance to all events. Bibi and Babu chai (grandmother and grandfather tea day) are consistently attended by over one hundred patrons on each day. This has been a really great development as far as appreciation for the elderly is concerned. All attendees are over the age of 70 and many are reuniting with long lost friends and relatives and catching up on how everyone is doing. This group of people has seen such amazing change within their lifetimes, as each of them were over 20 years old at the time of Independence.
Preparations for World AIDS Day are going nicely, as this year’s event (slated again for December 1st) will have a more local feel. The entire timetable, and schedule of performers are from the three wards of Luhunga, Mdabulo and Ihanu, and we expect the event to have a more open feel, as it will only be attended by people from the area.


Luhunga Secondary School Library
We’re excited about this African Book box funded project as students from Igoda Primary and other primary schools in the Luhunga ward will attend this school and the standard of good quality education will continue on into Secondary School. Cement plastering has continued this month and is nearly complete, and painting and furnishings will be next. The school has been using the existing library very sparingly for now in anticipation of this library opening up. This library will be a learning resource that will include computers that have been donated by an organization called IT Africa, and sent to us through Orphans in the Wild in the latest container. It may take a short time for students to become accustomed to using a library, as only those from Igoda primary will have had previous experience, but it is anticipated that this facility will help bring this new school some great success, and will help leave behind the poor results of recent years.

October 2010 (2 year recap)

Pictured: Chogo Dispensary, a completed project from Foxes' NGO


CHILDREN’S VILLAGE:
October was our most devastatingly sad month here with the NGO. In a mere couple of weeks, three children passed away at the children’s village. Unfortunately, this is a morbid reality that may occur uncomfortably often in the coming months and years, as we extend our Children’s village practices to include children whose health has declined severely due to malnutrition. With Dr. Leena Pasanen here, we feel this will be a great service to our community as, and will literally save the lives of children in the villages around.
We feel that this more temporary use of the children’s village for those families most in need may be an important lasting and sustainable approach to orphan care in our area. There may still be cases where very little if any family remains to care after orphaned children, but it is encouraging to see this new development.

Community Outreach

A big project in medical treatment occurred this month through the Community Outreach program. 10 patients with various ailments needing surgical attention were sent on a bus to Dar es Salaam to receive treatment. The ordeal was a great success in terms of community outreach at its purest form. The expenses however further exemplified the need for local Health facilities to be improved. The Mdabulo Hospital project is needed so that this community can get the health care services they deserve, and so that everyone may have access to health care with their own means.
The ten patients had various ailments such as Fistula, clubfeet, cleft palates, and others, and were all taken to a Hospital in Dar es Salaam called Comprehensive Community Based Rehabilitation Tanzania (CCBRT). By a great stroke of luck, Dr. Leena Pasanen had retuned to Tanzania just as these patients were recovering and she was able to check in on all of the patients before she left for Illembula. Dr. Leena will be joining us again for a visit in November.

Blantina’s House*
On one of Dr. Leena’s village visits she met an amazing woman named Blantina. Blantina is a woman with an unfortunate infliction where her bones are very weak, and she has had corrective surgery a few times and she now stands just over three feet tall. She is doing all that she can to raise her children and send them to school, and in fact she is one of most important leaders in HIV prevention education as she visits homes of neighbors and friends on her own time to discuss testing and treatment options in the area. Unfortunately her home is slowly falling apart as the thatch roof is fading completely away. A Canadian donor has responded to this story and has donated the $2000 needed to build Blantina her own “Bibi’s home.” Construction was completed this month all the way to roof level, and the house should be ready by the end of October. Blantina helped make the bricks, and clear the land and carry the water for building during the whole process and she is very grateful for the helping hand that has reached out to her and her family.
*See this incredible story here: www.youtube.com/foxesngo#p/u/6/ABpoFKzjk0M

Health Care
Chogo Dispensary
Construction has finished at the Chogo dispensary, and so for the first time the facility has in-patient service and running water! Chogo is likely the most isolated village in Mufindi District. It is over 100KM away from the closest Hospital, and has for now only had a small health dispensary for its health care needs. The NGO has contributed a water catchment system, similar to that which was installed at Ibwanzi health facility, and a modest 6-bed in-patient ward so that the village can have a place for sick patients to get rest, or to be monitored over night. To give an idea of the magnitude of the importance this service will bring to the village, before this in-patient service was provided, a patient would need to be transported most likely by bicycle to the nearest village on the bus route (Mapanda) which is 17 km away. Then in the middle of the night around 3 or 4 in the morning the patient would be put on a bus for a grueling 100km+ bus ride to the district capital of Mufindi, MAFINGA, to seek treatment there. This dispensary will

Education
Igoda Community Hall
On 27th of October the Community Hall hosted a very important seminar that will no doubt be a big step towards HIV prevention in the area. All of the natural healers in the surrounding 16 villages were called to the Community Hall to discuss proper health practices, and how it relates to HIV. The message of the seminar was one of togetherness. Rather than having the NGO, and health dispensaries debase or insult the natural healers in the area, the idea of this seminar was to collect knowledge from each other and help the community, as is the goal of everyone involved. Issues that came up included advice to be given to HIV+ mothers who are breast feeding, how to keep a supply of gloves to be used by the natural healers, where and how HIV testing and treatment is available, and overall awareness of HIV when treating patients in any capacity. One of the main points of the Community Hall is to help the community educate itself about issues that are important to the area. This seminar struck a very important cord in the fight against HIV/AIDS, which is the overwhelming health and social issue here in this part of Mufindi.

Volunteers

Since the opening of our volunteer house this May, the NGO has seen a number of volunteers with various skills, and we’d like to thank them for their time and efforts here.
Noelle Kurth came to us from the University of Kansas in the United States, and stayed here for about 6 weeks. Noelle has been a researcher at the University of Kansas for over 15 years, and has been focused on people living with disabilities. Noelle tutored our secondary school aged children, and worked with Hezron, an HIV+ child at the children’s villages who suffers from cerebral palsy. Hezron’s dexterity greatly improved during and after Noelle left, who had encouraged him to draw and write.
Antti is a Finish student who stayed for just over a month and while here he helped build up a fallen home for a blind HIV+ woman, put a new roof on the chicken banda, and taught at three different schools in the area. Before his departure some children in the village were heard chanting his name as we drove past.
Jenny and Esa, a married couple from Finland came for a short time, but both made their time worthwhile during their stay. Esa led the chicken banda refurbishment, and helped with some maintenance jobs at the Children’s village. Esa’s wife Dr. Jenny saw an impressive amount of patients during her village visits and clinic days that she held in each day. Often she would return well after dark having seen many patients and working hard to treat, or refer patients to the proper health facilities. We calculated that over 200 patients were seen in her short time her, and she visited 8 villages while she was here.
Lucy Turner plans to start a teaching career in September, and looked at her volunteer stint with us as a learning experience. She taught at three schools in the area, and very importantly, tutored some secondary school aged children at the children’s village.
We’d like to give a special thanks to all of our volunteers this year who have helped make a real connection with the community in Mufindi. Your services will not be forgotten, and all are welcome again anytime!