Compassion Orphanage

Today I went to Compassion Orphanage, a place at which the Maturo family used to volunteer and where we will conduct part of the health assessment. I met with Pastor Urio, a social worker named Joyce, and the Compassion coordinator, Mr. Mollel.

Compassion is a really neat place. They don’t receive any government money and depend on outside donors, internationally and domestically. About 300 kids attend Compassion, most of whom aren’t orphans, but who come from poor family situations. Some have sponsors from other countries as well. I got a tour of the compound, which consists of a big conference hall and offices as well as some “classrooms” and a kitchen. The classrooms are currently a converted chicken coop and a building in progress. The kids sang a song for me and asked me questions. On Saturdays they have little classes about different topics. They used to have fun things like art, etc., but they ran out of funding and now just have bible study and miscellaneous classroom topics. We will come back in a few weeks to teach about health.

In terms of services, they provide health services. They have a first aid kid on site and if the child gets very sick, they send the child to the hospital and pay for the medicine. They also have health seminars on prevention, hygiene, etc. In addition, they provide a healthy meal. Today, some of the parents of the Compassion children were making a healthy meal (greens, meat, etc) and are educated on how to prepare good food for their children. They also provide counseling to the parents about health and how to make the home environment better. They give the families little tasks to do that help Compassion but also give them some work (separating coal, etc).

I asked Joyce what she does as a social worker and she said she does three main things: 1) They do health evaluations which involves checking the children’s eyes, nose, etc. and assess their health situation to see if it’s changed since the last check up. They administer any care or send them to the hospital if necessary. 2) They create education reports for each child and mark down their class standing and grades. These reports are also sent to sponsors as an update. 3) Finally, she corresponds with overseas sponsors from countries such as the U.S., Korea, Greece, etc. They have the children write letters to their sponsors three times a year; at Christmas, Easter, and during school holidays. Each student has had the same sponsor the whole time so there is some continuity for the donor and student. They also send a picture of the student.

Something in the back of my mind the whole time was how S4Si can use some of the donor outreach that Compassion has. I think a lot of it just involves us operationally getting situated and organized to do that kind of donor outreach. I think that would help our donations a LOT!

I walked in to have lunch today and Mama was watching Dr. Dolittle again. Haha.

I am getting a traditional Tanzanian outfit made for nice occasions, such as a celebration we will hold at the end of the summer. Irene and I have been looking around for some nice fabric (called a kitenge).

I met with the scholars again today! I am starting to be able to connect with them more between my Swahili and their English (which is actually pretty good). I never fail to amuse them by speaking broken Swahili, so I figured it’s a good way to connect. I also remembered almost everyone’s name! They taught me some more vocab words and tested me on the animals, which I didn’t remember very well. I asked them to tell me more about Masai (3 or 4 of them are part Masai), what they do around the house, what they like to cook, what they want to be, etc. We could start our own village – William wants to be an engineer, Elias an animal doctor, Omar a leader, Rehema a lawyer, and so on. We did a little ceremony where everyone got a certificate congratulating them for finishing their first year of secondary school and took some pictures. We also gave them the photo release form that we translated into Swahili. I will meet them on Wednesday for them to give us back the form and a letter describing their year! I can’t wait. Next Sunday we are meeting them at the internet café to give them email addresses, which they all looked EXTREMELY excited for. None of them have really used a computer, so it will be great for them to learn initially and then to have the laptops at the Maturo’s house for reinforcement. See the Sustain Foundation blog http://sustainsakina.blogspot.com for a picture!

Vocab word of the day:
Ongeza! – more! (which Mama tells me every time I finish my food)