St Columba's get to work at BSD

We were totally delighted that Nigel and Judith's church, St Columba's in West London,http://www.stcolumbas.org.uk/ , made Tanzanear the subject of their Lenten Appeal. They raised more than £9000 and a team from the church is in Dar es Salaam right now, working hard in the heat to redecorate the boarding children's dormitories and make them into a real home for the children. These had been in a very sad state, and were not really a welcoming, homey place, especially for the tinies.

They are a joint team with Dar es Salaam Rotaractors, led by Willbard Kassian. Willbard is a long-term friend of the school, and his construction company did the prep work for the mission group at a great rate for us.

St Columba's are paying all their own expenses and giving up their holiday time to do this.

We are so grateful to everyone with a paintbrush in their hand!

Extracts from an email from Willbard below, plus photos:

"Nigel arrived safely and Judith together with the rest of the advance team arrived on wednesday morning. They joined the Roraractors the same morning and were immediately thereafter very busy despite the long hours of flight behind them. They are a very self motivated team and eager to accomplish. Despite the fact that for some its the first time to do this kind of work, they are fast learners and they have done a commendable work already in the first day.
In terms of performance, the top floor is almost done and the sedcond floor is advanced. This morning the team is wothout the rotaractors but they are doing work on all floors .....

.............The ladies are doing a very good work.
Judith is of the opinion that she has now qualified to become a gainfully employed painter. Probably Nigel might consider this as an option for early retirement if she can earn enough as a painter......

......Water is now flowing although the power situation is yet to be resolved.
We are hooking up a small genset that belongs to the school to pump the water into the overhead tanks."

Thanks again, everyone. This will make a huge difference to the school.

PHOTOS

Breakfast....

REAL WORK

Always the tall person's role....

Judith still looking glam despite the hard work.

more to come soon!

Report from Umivita, May 2010

Hello - we thought you might like to see what Umivita were up to last month. Your very kind donations fund their salaries: they are young deaf people in Tanzania helping people like them. This report is in their own words, although summarised.

Progress Report for May, 2010

Searching for job opportunities for the Deaf People

After deaf people Salma Kassali and Idd Mohamed emerged among more than 100 applicants to be interviewed by Ministry of Labour and Youth Development in the post of Office Attendants, UMIVITA meet with authority about need of availability of sign language service during the interview which was accepted.

Their emergence was a result of last December lobbying and advocacy meeting with the ministry in which UMIVITA presented three names qualified for the post. We hope all or one of these two guys would win the post because of government assurance as well as new policy approved recently securing disabled in employment.

Letter writings

Writing letters to companies and institutions to keep us informed whenever employment opportunities arise for young deaf people.

Purchase orders

Mwenge Deaf Carpentry Group got order of making and supplying tables and chairs for newly constructed Johannesburg Hotel at Sinza, in Dar es Salaam after Umivita Secretariat meet with the Hotel’s Management on early of month.

Education Report for May, 2010

Activities

Most of the works in class were preparing students for terminal examination which included tests

Benefit : That Preparing the children on the next terminal examination and to assess their ability in understanding their subjects .

Education

HIV /AIDS counseling training

Two UMIVITA education staffs with HIV/AIDS counseling and testing skills were among several teachers who went in Mbeya region to provide one week HIV/AIDS training among deaf children of six units in the region at the end of the month.

The programme was prepared by Ministry of Education.

Benefit: The training would benefit the deaf children in the region which is the one of with high level of prevalence in Tanzania and hence decrease deaf children who affected/infected and made vulnerable to HIV.

Hours and attendance

Average students’ attendance at evening class was 49 with 18 hours spent per week.

Hope this was interesting - love, Lucy

Maggie Harvey - goodbye

This is to say that Maggie Harvey, a stalwart member of the Tanzanear committee, has finally resigned after many years of marvellous advice and help. She is hugely experienced in working in developing countries, and we are very sad to see her go. We hope she enjoys retirement and having a bit more of a rest, and wish her much happiness.

Lucy and the rest of the Committee

New headteacher at Buguruni School for the Deaf

We had a lovely email from Matilda to say that the new head teacher has already started! We are really happy about the potential for new motivation and fresh life in the school. Matilda said, in an email to Judith Roberts:

"Love from Buguruni School for the deaf. Thank you for greeting me through the mobile phone. Things are starting to change. One nice thing that the new Headteacher is chasing around ,is cleanness. In the Domitories, everywhere around the school.The Boarding girls have labbled her { mama msafi} meaning a clean mother. That is a very nice start for her.

Her name is Winfrida Jeremia"

It's such good news that the new head seems to have so much energy and that the children already see her as a mother. Judith and Nigel are going to Tanzania in a few weeks and are looking forward to talking to her about how we can work together, and what sort of help she would like from us.

Lucy

April 2010 update from Buguruni School for the Deaf

Hello all - this is Lucy writing here, having finally worked out how to update the website via the blog that our kind helper Tristram set up. I promise to do this much more often from now on!

Anyway, Matilda sent us this encouraging update this week - we really hope you like reading it and that it makes you feel connected to the school. You'll see that there are some big changes happening with the school leadership (remember that Matilda is not the Head: she's the director) - we are hoping that this will be a new beginning for the deaf pupils in Dar es Salaam.

As always, a huge thank you to everyone reading for your interest and for your donations.

Matilda said:

"Dear Tanzanear Chairperson and Comittee Members,
Love from Buguruni School for the Deaf,
Please receive a short report of April from Buguruni School for the deaf.
This month the following has happened at this school.
1. The school has been given 500 plants from Dar es alaam North Rotary Club.The plants
were bought from Morogoro Agriculture Research University.They have also taught us
how to plant. They gave us 100 mangoe trees, 100 orange trees ,100 banana plants
100 tick trees and 100 pension plants.
2. At the school we have planted 15 mangoe trees, 15 banana plants 15 orange trees the
rest of all the plants have planted at the school farm at Mlamleni.
3. CORONA women has given to the shool Musical Instruments which they will start
using in July when the school starts the second term.
4. This term we had a big meeting with a Representative from the Ministry of Education,
The Municipal Education Officer and The Tanzania Society for the Deaf Board Members.
The meeeting was mainly on the Academic situation and the attitude of the Headteacher and the teachers.The school inspection showed that better co-operation is needed between the Headteacher and the rest of the staff.
Together the meeting came to a solution that after the June Holiday a new Headteacther
will come and take the post. A few other teachers will also be transffered Right now the pupils are preparing themselves for their trerminal Examinations.
We thank Tanzanear for funding us Inteternet Services.
Thank you
Matilda Ngonyani "


Next post will follow soon,

love from
Lucy

September 2009 update from BSD

We've just had an update from Matilda, the Director at the School. We're really pleased to hear all the good news, and we have everything crossed for the exam results when they come out in January....


Dear everyone
Lots of love from Buguruni School for the deaf. This is a short report of September 2009.
Std V11 sat for their Final National Examination to finsh their Primary Education.Thirty three pupils sat for the Examim

On the 18th Sept/up 28th September the school had a Mid term Holiday.at that very time we got a Voluterer Her name was Amy. She did a lot with the Boarding School pupils who remained at the school. They had a lot af art lessons pupils were very busy wth Amy and they felt that their holiday was properly used.

Something very special was done to the school by Tanzanear. Un behalf of the Board Chairman,pupils and entire staff would like thank Tanzanear for fumigating the school, the school now has no mosquitoes. Although they will start because of the near by houses and
ponds we are now in peace not as it was before. Now the new term has started at this week we have school Inspectors. So the school and everybody is very busy/
Also we brought 300 chickens for the school. We have renovated the chicken house.
The school garden is also good the pupils are enjoying looking after bthe projects

Matilda Ngonyani

Buguruni School goes online with Skype...

Judith and Nigel gave the school a laptop, using a generous donation from Judith's sister. They installed Skype on it, and now we can video-call Matilda from anywhere in the world. These photos show Judith helping Amina, one of the pupils, talk to Lucy via the internet and Judith showing the video picture to a huge crowd of pupils assembled in the office doorway.