JANUARY 2012 visit to Tanzania...accomplished!!
Jambo!! Before our January trip, joint meeting in Buffalo with friends in Warren, Pennsylvania and Majengo Canada. We created a long list of things we hoped the team from Canada could accomplish to move us forward....

Huge thanks this time to Canadian team of Seanna and Sierra Connell-Snell, Susan Lee, Simon Lee Hamilton, Margie Zeidler...to Charles Luoga, our on ground project coordinator and our wonderful staff at ICA and Majengo!!!! A whirlwind three weeks...with everyone back home now, jet lagged, exhausted, and missing those kids at Majengo, terribly. Ah...but the memories..

Briefly....impossible to sumerize....but here i go!!
• Team thought kids are in really good shape....happy and settled in one huge Majengo family, staff too. It's been a year since 67 kids arrived at Majengo en masse, a year of huge adjustment for kids and staff plus a major budget explosion for ongoing costs here in North America. Well done to everyone out there who has been helping, both in Tanzania and on the ground here in Canada and the US. WE are in this for life!!! With 114 kids depending on us...what a challenge. And what a feat!! thank you, thank you, thank you!!!!

•Majengo Canada got our official charitable status from the Canadian government.... transitioning now into a legal and substantially verifiable organization, responsible for tax receipts, financial accountability and Board approval both here in Canada and in Tanzania. It has been a huge feat! And again i thank everyone on our board in both countries bearing with me especially ....I called it the Founder's Dilemna back in the spring, adjusting from the sponteneity of creative spirit toward growing a grounded, ongoing and successful organization.
A challenge, and I thank everyone for bearing with me through this process!!

JANUARY trip highlights and accomplishments:
•MAJENGO STAFF: Hired Spora Waziri: a nurse/matron with 40 years of government hospital experience in charge of the emotional/physical needs of the kids, diets, monthly reports, education. Welcome aboard! WE now have a staff of 16 local people overseen by Charles Luoga from local agent ICA Tanzania and local village leaders: Mayunga and Raymond, as follows:
-Killo and Martha, sec and treasurer who oversee daily operations, buying food, maintenance, bookeeping, health and well being of the children and staff...
-Grayson our fabulous pre school on site teacher assisted by
-Matilda and Eve, two Masai girls who we supported through 5 years of secondary school and Montessori teacher's college;
-Nuruana, Mariamu and Sauma: three cooks who manage to serve up over one hundred meals, three times a day, over an open fire within a small outdoor kitchen:
-Janet, Hildegarde, Hadija, Felister and Ameni: 5 cleaners who not only shower and keep 77 kids clean everyday, and wash hundreds of items of clothing everyday, but also keeping our three cottages clean and maintained.
-Maulid and Mhina, two watchmen, equipped with bows and arrows to protect the kids night and day...
- beginning the process of finding a great English teacher.
- updated staff salaries, reviewed and approved budget
- assisted 5 staff members with interest free loans to support their own children through secondary school.
-great visit with India and Peter, co-founders of Rift Valley Children's home ourside Kiratu, to research their children's home, for design ideas towards our new Majengo facility, which we hope to begin building this summer....pending on raising capital funding.
-Canadian architect Margie Zeidler volunteering her expertise with photos, sketches and great ideas, in the process of creating initial conceptual drawings for our new Majengo facility, collaborating with staff, ICA, local leaders and children.
- approval from Monduli District Council (like our provincial or state governmental body), of local Majengo government gift to Majengo of a 6+ acres of wide open windswept plot of land, 3 miles away from Majengo, for our new facility.
- Susan Lee and Charles interviewing local lawyers to draft contracts re ownership of buildings, land.
-initial discussions with Charles re ground supervisors and builders for new facility.
-took Majengo kids and staff on safari in nearby Manyara national park: delighted by giraffe, lions hanging and hissing overhead in a tree, zebra, flamingo, ostrich, wildebeast, buffalo, gizelle, elephants!!! all there, 15 minutes from Majengo! 3 vans filled with kids, one getting hugely stuck in three feet of sinking mud and water....
-trips to Kiratu for older and younger kids to playground, swings, slides, climbing walls....blast!
-daily English, jewellery making, craft and art classes...with Simone, Susan, Seanna and Sierra.
--organized and Olympic field meet, with three legged races, running, jumping games.
- Sponsorship Program: 11 children to date
- registered 26 kids (age 1-7), into Majengo pre school, 88 (age 7-14) into primary school, and 2 into secondary school,
-17 kids into nearby Mama Annas English Medium School, big thanks to sponsors Joseph Slepertas (England), Susan Lee, Ralph Hicks, Peg and Marion's Masai Girls Education fund. On Grayson and Charles recommendation of kids doing well, and/or working hard... English vastly improved with older kids teaching English to staff and little ones.
-Simone donated computer for Majengo, taught Killo, Grayson computer skills, which they now teach the children! Wait till we get our new facility, with computers and a library!!
-Registered 16 kids into Masai Girls Education Fund, secondary school program thanks to Peg and Marion.
-Visited 4 street kids in jail for stealing food, in process of getting them out and into govt boarding school, primary. Need sponsor.
-Margie Zeidler creating sponsorship for teacher Grayson into one year Early Childhood Development degree in Arusha. (Grayson preparing teachers Matilda and Eve in his absense.)
-huge staff meeting: with challenges, successes, bought new needed items; maintenance, etc.
-Created proposed policies on children’s rights, behaviour, staff, vision, mission, treatment of kids, properties. To be approved by Board.
-Dennis (govt. social worker) reviewing backgrounds of all kids, to determine vulnerability and need to meet Majengo criteria.
-Welcomed 2 more vulnerable kids into Majengo.
Currently supporting 114 kids: 76 children living in. 37 living out.
-Updated Staff and Children’s bios and pics, age, schools, charts.

And had a fabulous time doing it!!!
Decided to include this into my blog....a record of hard work and great fun...
NEXT STEPS:
-New Majengo facility: estimated cost: $250,000.
-Major fundraising efforts in the US and Canada planned. Anyone willing to help,
please EMAIL!!! In the US: majengo@majengo.com; In Canada: lynnconnell@sympatico.ca.
-Matt's visit June to review legals, set up process with Charles and staff re building new facility, on ground contractors, builders, construction drawings....
-begin building new facility.
-Jamie taking church mission over in Sept/Oct to assist building.
-Lynn back to Tanzania November....

Would love to hear from you...and welcome everyone to get involved....
Thank you to everyone out there helping...I only wish you could visit to see for yourself what your dollars are directly doing....thanks~!!