CHILDREN OF AFRICA

PROJECTS FOR 2012

2011-10-28T16:31:00.002+02:00

The most impending projects that Children of Africa Volunteers need to fundraise for are:

Equipment of dispensary;

Construction of Maternity Unit;

Construction of staff quarters for the dispensary.

Considering the energy and the enthusiasm that this group of volunteers, composed now of more than 100 people, have, we don’t doubt that they are going to achieve them all. Children of Africa is determined and has set its mind in changing drastically the whole face of Kinango District, which is among the five poorest districts in Kenya.

BANANA PLANTATION & AGRICULTURE

2011-10-28T16:30:00.002+02:00

In December 2009, a first volunteer stepped on Tsunza on its own, even when the Association was not even registered. Toni Herrera, from Spain, asked us for directions to go to Tsunza and start some projects before we would even organize the first volunteers work camp.

On this first visit, all alone he made it to bring an extension from the main water pipe to the village, so that women would not walk long distances to fetch water. He also started the plantation of a small nursery bed that later, with the involvement of the villagers, would become a beautiful vegetable garden.

This summer 2011 some volunteers also engaged in agricultural activities, mainly digging and planting banana trees.

HEALTH

2011-10-28T16:29:00.008+02:00

Some of COA volunteers have knowledge in medical fields, there-fore, both in 2010 and 2011, they engaged themselves in treating some diseases, bringing some kids to hospital, paying for operations, distributing mosquito nets, and even changing the lives of some kids whose lives where in danger due to HIV.

TSUNZA PUBLIC LIBRARY

2011-10-28T16:28:00.019+02:00

In August 2010, COA volunteers engaged themselves in a big nice project to improve the situation of education in Tsunza: the construction of a public library. Walls were up, building was roofed, and provided with interesting, personally selected books.

In July and August 2011, the new volunteers repainted the library, tiled it, and put some nice ceiling to keep it clean. They also built a big cupboard, and brought more books and materials.

Currently, English lessons are provided in the library every day. Students from Class 1 to Class 3 are taken by Peter William, a volunteer teacher from Tsunza village; and students from Class 6 to Class 8 are receiving English lessons from Susanna Gomez, president of the Association, from 6pm to 8pm.

KIDS EDUCATION & ENTERTAINMENT

2011-10-28T16:28:00.016+02:00

Both in 2010 and 2011 volunteer work camps, the volunteers were devoting most of their time to education and entertainment of children. In 2011, English, Music and Spanish lessons were organized every afternoon from 4pm to 6pm. Due to the big amount of kids wanting to enroll in such activities, many of the lessons and activities had to take place outdoors, with the help of portable blackboards.

During the whole year 2010, a villager from Tsunza, Peter William, volunteered as tuition teacher in Tsunza Public library, providing English rein-forcement to kids. Currently, after some evaluation, the lessons became more organized, and another villager decided to volunteer as teacher, Joyce Salome. Joyce deals with Kindergarden pupils outdoors, and Peter deals with Standard 1, 2 and 3 inside the library.

Susanna Gomez, has also enrolled herself in English lessons for Standard 6, 7 and 8. And soon another teacher will en-roll to cover for Standard 4 and 5.
The volunteers, after the lessons, used to engage themselves in preparing funny activities to entertain the children, including singing, dancing, face painting, arts and crafts, games, bracelet making, and many others.

TSUNZA 4 LIFE WOMEN'S GROUP

2011-10-28T16:22:00.005+02:00

Tsunza 4 Life Women’s Group was created in August 2011. The main objective of the group is to develop professional skills among women and to provide them with means of income earning so that they can become part and parcel of the family sustain.

The group is composed of 10 women under the guidance of a chief representative, elected by themselves. Children of Africa Association has provided them with a workshop sponsored by COA and Maisha Safi Association, where they will have access to all types of materials and a structure where to work comfortably.

The main activities that the group will be involved in are sewing, soap manufacturing, making of bracelets and decorations, among others. Once they engage in these activities and become able to produce quite a reasonable bulk of stock, Children of Africa Association and Maisha Safi will engage in the marketing of such products both in Kenya and in Europe.

They already have a blog where their products are displayed:

Click here to see their site.

TSUNZA 4 LIFE FOOTBALL LEAGUE

2011-10-28T16:21:00.004+02:00

Tsunza for Life Football League, which comprised of 9 teams, played its finals on Saturday the 20th of August 2011. It was a one-month tournament whose main theme was to work on Aids awareness in the village of Tsunza, courtesy of children of Africa, the official sponsor. An extension of the Tsunza 4 Life Project, whose main objective was to involve more villagers and grab their attention on AIDS awareness. Three teams were the winners, and were handed out trophy, diploma and cash prizes. As closure, COA set up a big screen and projector where HIV related videos were displayed.

TSUNZA 4 LIFE AIDS PROJECT

2011-10-28T16:20:00.014+02:00

It was a busy summer with a lot of initiatives to mobilize the community as well as the school kids on the importance of HIV/Aids awareness, especially among the young generation.

Anna Planas (from Spain) organized a very nice contest to motivate awareness and involvement of the community. A poetry contest and an art contest were organized for the children to learn and act out several poems on Aids prevention and to draw posters with the same objective.

Various prizes, such as, school bags, books, along with medals and diplomas, were handed out to the winners of the contests on the 18th of August; a day full of activities, mainly organized by Anna Planas, who actively got involved in giving speeches about Aids in the school premises with the help of a projector.

COA also distributed condoms and, as closure, the Association distributed hundreds of leaflets with full information about HIV.

SPONSORSHIP

2011-10-28T16:20:00.012+02:00

In December 2008, Susanna Gomez (President of the Association), was appalled by the pathetic situation of education in the rural area of Tsunza.

She took photos of 22 kids who were around, She didn’t know whether it would work or not, but she promised to send the photos to her friends by mail and try to find sponsors for those kids to get better education.

Six months later, in summer 2009, the kids were all sponsored. She provided them with shoes, uniform, books, socks, and all types of school material.That same day, photos of 10 more kids. They were soon sponsored, and in December 2009 she took photos of almost 30 more. In July 2010, more than 60 students received their school material, and some secondary school students were paid for their fees.

The Children of Africa Sponsorship Program had already started. Nowadays, Lidia Belascoain (a volunteer from Spain) is at the head of this department, and more than 120 kids are already going to school in good conditions.

KITCHEN-STORE

2011-10-28T16:19:00.004+02:00

They realized how much the women were coughing, and suffering from lung-related diseases.

They also realized that the activities carried by the Association, such as the purchase and distribution of school material for more than 100 kids, needed a bigger place to store the material away, and keep them clean.

During last year’s volunteer work amp, most of the volunteers saw the big need of building a bigger kitchen-store. During the whole month of August, none of the volunteers dared to put a foot in the previous kitchen as the smoke would just them cry in a few seconds. Therefore, this project of building a new kitchen-store started to take shape. This summer they made it true.

WATER TANK

2011-10-28T16:18:00.006+02:00

Tsunza often suffers of water shortages and the main pipe usually breaks down, leaving the villagers without water supply for long weeks. Therefore, COA felt the need of building a big water tank next to the medical dispensary, to provide a continuous source of water that would never put the health of patients in danger.

In 2010, a group of students from the Spanish Highschool, IES Llica, already fundraised some money for this purpose. However, the money was used to cover the completion of the public library, as the funds were not enough for the water tank. This year, two Spanish volunteers, Maria Cerezo and Laura Martinez, fundraised enough to cover it all, and to see it completely built.

TSUNZA WORKSHOP

2011-10-28T16:17:00.005+02:00

This project was born from the dreams of a volunteer from 2010 work camp, Elena Ruiz-Chena, who was looking for ways to provide the villagers with more autonomy. In November 2010 two volunteers from Spain, Montse Brugat and Albert Pujol, who spent one month in Tsunza, already started the rais-ing of the walls.

In August 2011, the new group of volunteers finished it all. They finished building the walls, roofing, flooring, painting, and furnishing. The workshop is divided in two separated areas: one for carpentry and another one for the Tsunza 4 Life Women’s Group activities (soap manufacturing, making of bracelets, and sewing in the near future).

Now the carpentry is already in use. Some villagers are making furniture for the dispensary and the library. And the women’s group often gather to make soap and bracelets in their section. They realized how much the women were coughing, and suffering from lung-related diseases. They also realized that the activities carried by the Association, such as the purchase and distribution of school material for more than 100 kids, needed a bigger place to store the material away, and keep them clean.

During last year’s volunteer work amp, most of the volunteers saw the big need of building a bigger kitchen-store. During the whole month of August, none of the volunteers dared to put a foot in the previous kitchen as the smoke would just them cry in a few seconds. Therefore, this project of building a new kitchen-store started to take shape. This summer they made it true.

DONATELLA TARASCO

2010-10-12T00:15:00.012+02:00

Dody is a volunteer from Italy who created an association similar to ours in her country, Maisha Safi. Before coming to Kenya she fundraised around 3,000 euros to cover projects both in Likoni and Tsunza. She was great at discovering all what the communities needed and, being a dentist and her mum being a doctor, she was very sensible with projects related to health care. Here are some of the things that she could cover:

Almost 400 euros were invested in school material for Tsunza school and different teaching centers. She spent 300 euros in a health project consisting on bringing a doctor to Tsunza to check the health of more than 120 people and take blood tests on more than 40. She also brought some villagers to a good hospital, and especially took care of a mum that had just given birth to a baby, and of baby Sophia, and an 11-months orphan baby who was about to die as she was undernourished.
With 600 euros she bought a wood saw to cut palm trees, in order to start a carpentry project that would provide job at least to five people. She paid for the water used to build the library in Tsunza, and for rubbish containers and different utensils for the villagers.
She also distributed more than 100 toothbrushes and paste, and spent around 1,100 euros to finish the construction of the two classrooms in Timbwani school Barcelona Block, that had been started with the 2400 euros sent by Peter Bragg and fundraised through Treviglas School in UK.
She paid for the university fees, room rent and transport of a student from Likoni, Boniface Malenje and she bought three bicycles for kids in Tsunza. Apart from this, she was varnishing beds, covering books for the library, making cement, bringing stones, painting the library, building shelves, and above of all, giving so much tender, love and care to the kids.

PROJECTS 2011

2010-10-11T22:51:00.004+02:00

Looking at the success of this summer’s workcamp, we continue dreaming with the improvement of this charming village of Tsunza and we will start fundraising to achieve much more next summer. One of our priorities is to help Tsunza and its villagers becoming more autonomous and self-sufficient and to provide them with more formation, therefore we suggest that the future workcamp should be basically devoted to create new job positions and to education. And as we have not obtained subventions for the big project of the dispensary, this big dream is still with us. Here are some of the ideas that we have been working on:

1. Build Medical dispensary and Dental Unit
2. Carpentry workshop (it would provide job for 5 people)
3. Sewing workshop (it would provide job to 10 people)
4. Soap manufacture workshop (it would provide job to more than 10 people)
5. Teaching computers and music
6. Paving some village areas (for hygiene purposes)
7. Obtain more books for the library
8. Sponsoring of more than 300 kids
9. More school material for Tsunza Primary School
10. Rebuild cooking areas and provide it with ventilation

PROJECTS ACHIEVED IN SUMMER 2010

2010-10-11T20:26:00.012+02:00

The volunteers of Children of Africa are back! With lots of strength, energy and very satisfied with the great achivements of this summer. First, I want to congratulate all those who made a big dream come true, the dream of working together to improve even a small part of the world, and making us realise, day after day, that our lives are somehow more useful when staying in Kenya, rather than staying at home on the sofa.
This year has been very successful for Children of Africa since, after getting registered in February 2010, everything has evolved at a very fast pace. Many volunteers have already joined the organisation, the number of volunteers coming to Kenya this summer has been multiplied by two and the achievements, thanks to their efforts, adapting capacity and hope, have been spectacular. Achievements of Children of Africa summer workcamp 2010 with the help of other organisations such as Maisha Safi and Treviglass School:

Construction of 2 showers

Construction of two latrines

Expansion and caring of vegetable garden

Construction of two remaining classrooms at Timbwani School Barcelona Block

Construction of a public library for Tsunza

Doctor examination for more than 120 people in Tsunza

Brought children and babies to hospital

Brought, organised and stored medicines

Distributed lots of school material, clothes, baby shoes, toothpaste and toothbrushes

Acquired and delivered all the school material for the 51 sponsored kids in Tsunza

Paid for the school fees of 15 kids and university students in Likoni

Bought a wheelchair for a handicapped student

Bought food for more than 14 families in Tsunza

Bought a handcart, a wheelbarrow and tools for Tsunza

Bought more than 30 blankets, clothes and shoes for many people in Tsunza

Bought 14 beds for future volunteers and workers and varnished them
Bought 3 bicycles

Bought beds, matrasses and bedcovers, restore furniture for Likoni Aids Orphanage

Brought kids on excursion and prepare entertaining and sports activities for them

Bought a power sow to start a carpentry project

Speeches about health, hygiene, ecology, family plan, etc.

Given lessons and started a studying system for the kids

Cleaned all the area of Nigamba and digged a pit for burning rubbish

WILLIAM AND SUSANNA

2010-10-11T15:30:00.011+02:00

William and me arrived on the 7th July to Mombasa, and all this month of July, with the help of three of our volunteers, was devoted to buy the school material for the 51 sponsored kids in Tsunza, to purchase the necessary material to build the library, latrines and showers, to start building the two remaing classrooms of Barcelona Block (that this time were sponsored by Treviglass School students thanks to Peter and Vanessa Bragg), pay for Habel’s university, go school by school to pay for the fees and material of Babu Tom’s and Patricia’s children (workers of the Orphanage), help a teenager over 18 to leave the orphanage by paying for his rent in a new room, and so many other things.

As members of the directive board of Children of Africa, we both helped organising all the volunteers in their staying in Tsunza and Likoni, we picked them from the airport, and acquired and transported all the necessary material for all the projects, from the delivering of school material to the sponsored kids, stones, bricks, iron sheets, cement, wood, handcarts, wheelbarrow, tools, needed for the construction of the library, classrooms, showers, and latrines.
We were also in charge of getting the varnish and painting needed, of organising meetings with the main builder, and design the projects, organising meetings with the kids and villagers to raise awareness about the importance of education, health, and hygiene, and were in charge of the supervision of the construction of the two classrooms at Timbwani school in Likoni.
We also set up a day informing the villagers that we would be holding a meeting for those families who need help for their kids to go to school, and took photos of more than 300 children who claimed for help. One of our big targets now is to find sponsors for these kids (we will upload the photos soon).
The total amount that we spent from Children of Africa’s account for all these projects to take place was 7,000 Euros, and 3,000 remained in the Kenyan account for them to start building the water tank in Tsunza, even after we are gone, and to start building the place for the project of carpentry workshop that we hope will provide job for five people.

NICOLA BUSHEN AND JO ROWELL

2010-10-01T18:10:00.008+02:00

These two volunteers from UK arrived on the 3rd of August and they split their two-weeks staying between Tsunza and Likoni. They only stayed for one week in the rural village, but they already made a difference. They had fundraised 600 Euros for Tsunza, and another similar amount for Likoni Orphanage. In Tsunza this money was used to buy material for the construction of the library, especially cement, iron sheets and books. We also bought blankets, bins and food for the villagers with their donation. These two volunteers (working as teachers in Uk) were especially devoted to tasks related to the construction of the library and covering its books, taking care of the garden, and organzing entertaining activities for the kids. Once in the orphanage, they had brought a present for each kid that they had collected in their country among friends and schoolmates, they fumigated the house as it was full of bugs, they bought new matrasses and replaced the old ones, they bought food, helped painting the classrooms, played with the kids and so many other things.

ANNA NOGUER

2010-09-30T15:53:00.006+02:00

Anna was a volunteer from North Spain, whose main role in Tsunza was to entertain the children with so many activities, along with Elena and Silvia. She made each of the sponsored kids to write letter and draw painting for the sponsors, she painted with them, she made bracellets with them, etc. She was also great at covering books, helping with the building tasks, varnishing, painting and distributing material to the schools. She also helped with the acquisition of school material for Tsunza, and helped distributing the material among the sponsored kids. She helped organising medicines to create a medicine store in Tsunza. We classified everything in different drawers, translated the information, and explained how to use them to the villagers.

ELENA RUIZ-CHENA

2010-09-30T15:46:00.004+02:00

Elena, our last volunteer from South Spain, a volunteer who fell in love with Rukia Rumba, an orphan girl from Tsunza. Apart from spending lots of hours playing and taking care of this 8-year-old girl, she was of great help varnishing many of the beds that each volunteer had bought.

Before they arrived, we had bought 14 beds for them to sleep in a house in Tsunza, and they all repaid for their bed, contributing to the project of creating a place for future volunteers and visitors to stay without problem. She also helped covering books, preparing the school material to be distributed among the 51 sponsored kids, etc.

Her personal project was paying for the labour and workers needed for the construction of the library which was more than 200 euros. She also helped acquiring furniture for the roof of the library and buying school material for Tsunza. She helped painting, preparing cement, building latrines, and preparing so many games for the children such as painting faces, learning songs, playing sports, etc.

LUCÍA COBOS

2010-09-29T23:55:00.004+02:00

Lucía, a journalist from South Spain, was of great contribution too. As a journalist she would spend hours observing the life style, traditions, and customs of Tsunza village. She wanted to become part of the community, so soon got involved in cooking, cleaning, water-bringing, tasks along with the women of Tsunza. She went to visit many people into different houses and spend times talking to them finding their most impending needs.
She also wanted to contribute with the library project, so spent more than 100 euros with very good chosen books, she bought school material, she helped varnishing beds, covering books, preparing cement, painting doors. As she was concerned about education, she also gave some English lessons under the tree, brought books and medicines from Spain.

GIOVANNA MAZZARONE

2010-09-29T23:26:00.008+02:00

Giovanna from Italy was also a great support for the kids as she was one of the sweetest volunteers and gave so much love and care to the kids. She would play with them everywhere, dance with them, and entertain them so much. She also helped covering books until exhaustion, heleped with construction tasks, cleaning tasks, and she donated her contribution for the plastering of the library and paid for the windows and door frames.

She helped Laura Ortoneda and Dody with the painting of the library and varnishing of shelves and furniture. And the result was great! She also helped buying and distributing material for the schools with Laura and Silvia and brought blankets for the kids and nights were a bit cold.

LAURA ORTONEDA AND SILVIA MARIOTTI

2010-09-29T19:34:00.008+02:00

Laura Ortoneda, a volunteer from Barcelona (Spain), was also very useful in Tsunza and soon realised that all the teaching areas, nurseries and Tsunza school were lacking basic teaching material. So she decided, along with Silvia Mariotti, Donatella Tarasco and Giovanna Mazzarone, all from Italy, to buy loads of school material and distribute it. In total they bought:

1800 COPY BOOKS that were distributed among a Private tuition school, Tsunza Primary School, Razul Nursery Islamic Centre, Molem Islamic Centre, etc.

975 PENCILS, 300 PENS, 500 RULERS, 425 RUBBERS, 150 SHARPENERS, 100 COLOUR BOXES, CHALK, 5 BLACKBOARDS, 6 MAPS, BIG COPY BOOKS, RED PENS AND SHOES FOR THE TEACHERS, etc.

Laura and Silvia also helped preparing activities for the children, covering books for the library and building, among many other things and despite Laura almost broke her leg twice!
Silvia was very much concerned about the studying atmosphere of the village, and she gave a small speech about the importance of studyin habits and decided to set up some tuition time every morning from 9 am to 11 am to set a model to be imitated by the all the families. So far the system has been very successful and we received news from Tsunza that the lessons continue and that now they take place in the library. They also helped varnishing, painting, building, covering books, entertaining children, etc.

MARIA DELGADO AND LAURA BARRERO

2010-09-29T17:39:00.012+02:00

Maria Delgado, the treasurer of the association from Figueres-Spain, came again this year for around 20 days, and this time she brought her friend Laura also from Figueres, and altogether became a perfect couple, taking care of each other all the time. They were able to help buying material for the different schools in Tsunza, they helped covering books, organizing them and making the inventory of the books for the library.
They had brought baby clothes and school material from Spain and went arround the village distributing the material among the poorest families. They also bought a wheelchair for a handicapped kid that we sponsored last year, and spent a few days in the Likoni orphanage, where they bought food for the kids and supervised the construction of the classrooms at Timbwani.

VOLUNTEERS 2010

2010-09-29T09:59:00.019+02:00

PAU AND ALEXIS

With the help of Alexis Moles and Pau Menéndez (the two volunteer architects from Barcelona and Ibiza), we could make it to build two latrines and two showers, and of course they also helped with the construction of the library, especially makinf door frames, benches, tables, preparing cement, bringing bricks, transporting materials, etc. All the hard jobs that would have taken much more time without them.

They were fixing all types of things, erecting walls, digging soil to place the pipes of the latrines, etc. They also wanted to contribute with the acquisition of a solar panel and pay for all the expenses for it to be installed on the roof of the library. The total cost of this project was around 400 Euros. And the electrical light finally arrived to Tsunza!

They were great with the kids too and could not stop taking care of them, playing games and organising sports with those who wanted. Everybody will miss them in Tsunza!

JORDI AND ANNA

The last weekend of July Anna and Jordi, a couple from Girona (Spain), also visited Likoni and Tsunza. They had fundraised money for both places and spent half of the amount buying a lot of food for the kids at the orphanage and with the other half they paid for food for 14 families in Tsunza and bought a handcart for transport.

LORENA AND MONICA RUBIRA

Two volunteers from Spain. These two twins helped with the construction of the two remaining classrooms in Barcelona Block in Timbwani School. They also brought some kids to the doctor and brought school material and baby clothes to Tsunza village. They bought a double bed, bedsheets and matrasses since, when they arrived, there weren’t enough beds and some kids were sleeping on the floor. They restored furniture and bought new one. They bought breakfast every morning, shoes and underwear for the kids.

They paid for the monthly rent of July (250 euros) and bought food for the kids. They also bought some school material and organised some evening lessons and studying atmosphere for the kids at the orphanage. They also brought the kids on excursion and so many other things. In general, they had a great experience and were even able to visit Tsunza village for a weekend.

AINA NOGUERA

After two weeks in Kenya, the third of our volunteers arrived, Aina Noguera from Mallorca, who was also a great help both in Likoni and Tsunza. Aina was tagged as the entertainer of Children of Africa. She was great playing with the kids, and was able to make everybody laugh every day.

She taught songs, she organised football matches, Swahili-English lessons under the tree, and so much more. She contributed to the development of Tsunza by paying for the furniture necessary to roof the library and to make the shelves, as well as, varnishing, covering books, bringing stones, etc. Her energy was endless!

CHILDREN OF AFRICA TEAM SUMMER 2010

2010-09-29T09:04:00.007+02:00

Here are some photos of the big group of excellent volunteers who made it possible to achieve so many objectives: Apart from working hard, we had so much fun together and made very good friends.

CHILDREN OF AFRICA -TSUNZA PUBLIC LIBRARY

2010-09-28T22:17:00.015+02:00

SPONSORING KIDS (51 sponsored)

2010-09-28T21:43:00.005+02:00

LATRINES

2010-09-28T20:58:00.006+02:00

DELIVERING MATERIAL

2010-09-28T20:37:00.004+02:00

CHILDREN'S ENTERTAINMENT

2010-09-27T10:53:00.006+02:00

BARCELONA BLOCK-TREVIGLASS CLASSROOMS

2010-09-27T09:56:00.004+02:00

HEALTH SPEECH

2010-09-27T09:50:00.004+02:00

CARPENTRY WORKSHOP

2010-09-27T09:44:00.003+02:00

BEDS

2010-09-26T20:01:00.004+02:00

DOCTOR EXAMINATIONS AND BLOOD TESTS

2010-09-25T12:59:00.006+02:00

VEGETABLE GARDEN

2010-09-25T12:32:00.007+02:00

SHOWERS AND LATRINES

2010-09-20T10:19:00.006+02:00

KENYA VOLUNTEERS WORKCAMP 2010

2010-04-18T23:10:00.006+02:00

This summer a group of more than 10 volunteers are coming with us again to carry out the diferent projects that we have designed for this workcamp with the funds that we make it to fundraise before July, through different fundraising events that we are organising. The information of these events will be displayed here in short.

If you want to come with us as a volunteer, read the information and basics of the workcamp and fill up the form that you will find here below, and send it back by mail to susanna.gomez@gmail.com.

APPLICATION FORM

BASIC WORKCAMP INFORMATION

LAST DAY FOR APPLICATION: 1st June

IRRIGATION AND AGRICULTURE PROJECT 2

2010-01-09T01:09:00.008+01:00

With the new year, we can say we come with very good news and lots of renewed energy, especially thanks to the great contribution of the first volunteer who decided to spend 10 days in Tsunza and carry out some of our most impending projects.

Toni Herrera, from Empuriabrava (Girona, Spain), left Spain on the 25th of December and came back on the 6th of January 2010. with a big smile. He was happy to say that he had lived one of the most beautiful experiences of his life among the villagers of Tsunza, where he felt so much welcome.

We can feel very thankful as he decided and was able to carry out our irrigation and agriculture projects. With the help of some villagers, he extended the main water pipe, and set up the water meter right next to the area where we are planning to build the medical centre. But not only he managed to bring water to this very dry area, but also started a great project that will bring more autonomy to the community: the plantation of a vegetable garden. First, he bought the necessary tools and seeds, then they prepared the soil and started with the plantation of the nursery bed, that will soon provide these people with good vegetables to feed their children and to sell and get some petty money to pay for the water.

He also decided to provide the village with enough food for all these Christmas holidays and to distribute the necessary school materials and uniforms to the children who we had already sponsored so far. He also distributed material we had given before his departure (toys, clothes, shoes, etc.), and paid for the secondary school fees of a teenager who was sponsored. He said he will never forget this experience but I'm sure that Tsunza villagers will neither ever forget him. THANKS TONI!!!

Irrigation Project: 210 euros

Vegetable Garden Project: 80 euros

Feeding Project: 230 euros

ONGOING FUNDRAISING EVENTS 2010

2009-10-29T17:17:00.009+01:00

1. Donating calendars:

We are designing some wall-calendars with beautiful photos of Kenya and we are planning to give them to people at Christmas if they dinate 5 euros.

2. Photo exposition:

Laura Pujol is trying hard to organise a photo exposition with her beautiful photos taken in Kenya. We will provide with mor einformation about the near future.

3. 2nd Hand Market:

Near my birth village there is another small village, Castelló d'Empuries, where they have a 2nd hand market every Sunday. To obtain a space in the market from the government costs 10 euros per day. So we will pick a few boxes and fill them up with all kinds of items that we have at home and we don't use anymore (books, clothes, accessories, shoes, toys, etc). We will also prepare some nice posters and a small place with the book where we have all our projects written and set up a "solidarity stall" during one or two Sundays. And see how much money we can make.

4. Handmade jewellery:

5. Christmas cards:

Susana Monedero is making some Christmas cards to sell and fundraise. She will expose them on her blog where people can order as many as you want. http://regalosolidario.blogspot.com/

6. BIG solidarity concert:

And last but not least, the big challenge, I want to organise a big BIG solidarity concert maybe in May. The main idea is to bring a famous singer who would sing along with other minor singers or groups that we could convince to sing for us to fundraise. We will also have to ask the government about a public place for them to perform, but it cannot be an open area because then it's very difficult to fundraise and to sell tickets. As you can see we are sttuborn, and very dreamy hehhehehheee,, But nothing is impossible if we try. So up to now, I'm dreaming of bringing AKON to Barcelona! hehehhehehhe yes, yes, maybe next week I will hit my head on the floor after dreaming, and I will go down to a lower-category singer hehhehhe.... But dreams are for free, aren't they?? I already sent an email to a woman whose husband is supposed to know Akon's manager. But she has not replied yet. please if you have any contacts, or any ideas about this, let me know. It would be great that we could organise "The June's big Children of Africa Concert" for the children of kenya!!!!! hahahhahahaha....
Well, this is all the fundraising events we have up to now. You can include more and more, and more of course.... We will all cooperate to make them become true and useful!
In the end, it was not Akon, but we had a lot of fun with M'Bore and The City's Last Noise!

VOLUNTEERS WORKCAMP 2009

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In summer 2009, a group of volunteers from different countries (Spain, u.k and German) decided to come with us this time and help bringing and distributing the school materials to the sponsored kids. Maria, Nicola, Rachel, Lidia and Laura came together in the first visit to the village this year and not only helped sponsoring the children but also contributed to the community by hiring local villagers who danced and played traditional music for them. In a second expedition, Rebeca, Cristina and Martina also volunteered bringing medicines, clothes and toys that they had colected in Spain. The villagers were very happy to receive their help as it is not common to see many volunteers around.

IRRIGATION AND AGRICULTURE PROJECT

2009-10-01T22:54:00.000+02:00

Agriculture, being the main economic activity and the backbone of the village, has been a misery and a complete disaster up to now. This has been mainly propelled by the global warming which has resulted into big changes in the weather and therefore in agricultural landscape. Rains are insufficient and unreliable, and therefore nowadays villagers collect very scarce harvest.

Poor and old traditional farming methods have also contributed to this misery and thus something should be done to change this situation. The Doctors volunteer workcamp will require 100 euros per week to be paid by each volunteer to contribute with the community. It is with this contribution that we will be able to carry out the irrigation project.

On the one hand , we will try to extend a branch from the main water pipe to lands that belong to the community to irrigate a vegetable garden that will also be planted with the help of the contribution from the Doctors. It will be the first irrigation farming to take place in the area. From here not only the villagers will see the need to focus on new farming systems but also the district as a whole will take it as model to imitate. Hopefully, it will be a successful plan and all thanks to Reyes for the great projets that she has.

DOCTORS WORKCAMP

2009-10-01T22:41:00.000+02:00

Again the Canarian Doctor Reyes came up with a new project. She is making big efforts to gather as many doctors and nurses as possible to go to Kenya as volunteers in a two-weeks-health workcamp. They will be staying in the village of Tsunza where they will be dealing with issues related to healthcare, such as:

Treating identified cases of sick villagers

Encouraging mothers to give birth in hospital, and providing them with motherhood education

Visting nearby primary schools in order to give speeches on sexual education, health, and hygiene (Aids is widespread in the district, as well as early pregnancy, and cholera)

providing them with information about proper use of medicine

examining the viability of the future medical dispensary

THE MEDICAL DISPENSARY

2009-10-01T22:28:00.002+02:00

Out of the brilliant ideas of Dr.Reyes from the Canary Islands, come the greatest project for Tsunza: the construction of a medical dispensary that would cover the health needs of many villagers. Once she found out that the life-span of people from Tsunza was very short (45), that many girls left school after getting pregnant and even have problems as they are not very educated in motherhood matters, and after getting information about the high rate of AIDS, Cholera, malaria, and other diseases, she could not avoid struggling for such a big dream to become a reality.

On the other hand, the nearest dispensary is kilometres away, and it even serves to more that 40,000 people. The Kinango district hospital, which is the only well equipped, is located almost 100 kilometres away from Tsunza. For this reason people die every year due to complications during birth, or from diseases produced by lack of education, medicine and hygiene.

As a first step, she will try to have acces to the social helps of Government , she will also be organising the Doctors workcamp, who will examine the possibility of such a project and will make big efforts to contact organisations like Farmamundi that would provide us with big quantities of medicine to be used by the centre.

This medical centre will be constructed on the lands that belong to the community (in the photo above), and although we will provide them with infrastructure, the community compromised to take part in the construction task and in the maintainance of the centre.

More information of the whole project will be provided soon. The approximate budget that we need to fundraise for this medical dispensary to be constructed is 123,000 euros.

The project will be developed in two different phases dues to the difficult task of gathering all the necessary funds. This summer a group of volunteers and two architects are travelling to Kenya in order to carry out the first part of the project: the foundations (budget: 15,200 Euros). We have already applied for different subventions in different institutions. Let's see if we are lucky.

If you want to see the full project, click here.

SPONSORING CHILDREN OF TSUNZA 2008

2009-10-01T21:55:00.001+02:00

In summer 2008, I had the opportunity to visit a typical African village called Tsunza located in the outskirts of Mombasa, in Kinango District, (one of the 5 poorest Districts in kenya). I was happy and so much impressed by the hospitality of the villagers, they seemed very smiley but despite first impressions, I was surprised to see many kids around during school hours. Most of them were barefoot wearing ragged clothes and even walking on the hot sun with herds of cows. I became curious and could not avoid to ask about the situation. I was informed that their families were not able to afford bringing them to school due to many reasons ranging from lack of school materials to examination fees.

On the same day, I felt that something should be done to change the situation of these kids. I was filled with new energy and came up with a plan. I stretched my hand into my bag for my camera, I took photos of 22 kids and promised to bring them back to school next tim I would step my foot in Kenya, although I still did not know how.

Back in Spain, I started sending mails to my friends even with very little hope that this plan would work. Amazingly, my mailbox never stopped receiving news from people who wanted to help and, in less than four months, the 22 kids were sponsored.

In the same year 2008, during christmas, I went back to Kenya and, with the help of William and some others, made the bigest shopping ever: 22 pairs of shoes, 22 uniforms, school material etc. We finally brought the kids to school. After one month, I was back in Spain with 8 more kids to be sponsored through the same process. And again it was a big success.

At the moment we have 30 kids who are already sponsored and 20 more are waiting to find sponsors. Thank you all for your great help!

PEOPLE OF TSUNZA

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PHOTOS OF THE VILLAGE

2009-09-25T16:57:00.002+02:00

Tsunza is a village that used to be part of Kwale District, but nowadays, due to administration reasons was recently relocated within the new District of Kinango. Kinango district is among the 5 poorest districts in Kenya with 75% of its population living below poverty line, and 26% of them surviving below absolute poverty.

Causes of poverty in the district include the following:

• Poor infrastructure development e.g. roads, electricity, water e.t.c

• Low agricultural production due to land tenure problems

• Poor and undeveloped agricultural marketing

• Poor agro-industry base

• Vagaries of nature of droughts and flood e.g. the El niño phenomena

• Yearly droughts due to rainfall inadequacy particularly in Kinango and Samburu divisions

• High population dependency ratio.

To sum up, the rate of AIDS is also very high (33.2% of population is infected), therefore there is need to intensify awareness and to educate people in health matters.

Overpopulation has a direct impact on the basic needs such as water, food, health and education. This implies that efforts should be made to cater for this population increase and other economic constraints that come with it.

TSUNZA TRADITIONAL MUSIC

2009-09-25T15:26:00.001+02:00

Tsunza Traditional Music is played and danced by the villagers themselves as a way to preserve their Duruma culture and traditions. However, due to the breakdown of their farming system and the diminishing benefits of their fishing activities, dancing has become a new target for survival, as the different tribes has turned it into a new profession. Thanks to the increase of tourism industry, these villagers sometimes have the chance to play and dance in front of visitors and tourists, who at the same time provide them with the opportunity to bring home some income to feed their families. Therefore, it is also among our duties to bring as many people as possible to the village, and to encourage them to improve the life standards of this community.

TSUNZA SCHOOL

2009-09-25T15:15:00.000+02:00

Tsunza Primary School, the only one since colonial times, was improved by a group of Dutch volunteers who visited Tsunza. All the children we are sponsoring through our program are learning in this school.

THE VILLAGE OF TSUNZA

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LOCATION: Tsunza is located on the West of Mombasa, in the district of Kinango, in Coast Province (Kenya).

POPULATION: Tsunza has a population of about 10,000 inhabitants.

ECONOMIC ACTIVITIES: Peasant farming and fishing are the main activities sustaining the lives of the villagers.

Recently, due to the global warming and its weather impact, rainy seasons are no longer predictable, resulting in poor harvesting. Tsunza has become even poorer than it used to be, as most of the farmers had to change and rely on fishing activities to survive, and the economical benefit of it has been over-exploited.

ADMINISTRATION: The village is ruled by elected elders of the clan that control the community in several issues related to law and order. Each elder controls a sub-village for easier administration.

SCHOOL AND EDUCATION: Tsunza Primary School, a methodist missionary school, has been the only one since the colonial times. It has been giving education up to 100 kids per class and, for this reason some lessons many times were held under a tree. Thanks to a group of volunteers from Netherlands, who realised that the school was in pathetic conditions, a new block was built. However, the number of students who achieve the last level of Primary education is very low. Many parents cannot afford to pay for the school needs, ranging from school materials to examination fees. The number of students proceeding to Secondary school education is even smaller and only a handful has access to university. This situation has contributed to make the villagers lives even harsher, whose means to survive are very scarce.

TRADITION, CULTURE AND BELIEFS: It is believed that Tsunza as a village originated and evolved from a married couple who came to settle as farmers in the area long time ago. Since then, families, clans and sub-villages developed. Tsunza is therefore considered to be a huge African family, whose members live deeply rooted in old traditions, and supersticious beliefs based on witchcraft. Traditions make such an influence in their society that they have hardly evolved from their old methods and old life-style. They make efforts to keep their old traditional music, their old clothing items, their old harvesting and farming techniques, etc. Especially due to their lack of education, that is fortunately decreasing lately.

The main religion is Islam (especially among women), although quite a number of Christians live along together. It is shocking how different religions and people worshipping different gods can perfectly coexist together even within a single family. It's not strange to find blood brothers of different religions (some are Christians, and some are Muslims) in the same house, becoming a perfect model of respect.