CHILDREN OF AFRICA

PROJECTS FOR 2012

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

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

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

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

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 yea

r 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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

THE ESSENCE OF VOLUNTEERING

"Volunteering abroad is not an opportunity given to the rich and developed citizens of occidental countries in order to experience an extraoridinary adventure. In fact, I think it's unacceptable that we allow ourselves the luxury of dreaming about sensational experiences, while the people of the needy countries we want to visit can only allow themselves to dream of some piece of bread in their mouths.

A volunteer workcamp is not a selfish opportunity to satisfy our egos or our cravings for travelling; a volunteer workcamp is an opportunity that the volunteer himself provides in order to offer inconditional assistance and support, time, economic resources and efforts to the most needy ones; an opportunity to change a small, tiny piece of the world.

Therefore, a volunteer should never allow himself to become an extra burden for those he's trying to help. It would be simply nonsense. A volunteer must be a relief, water on top of fire, sugar on top of the bitterness that rules their lives, a streched hand, a balm for the open wounds, a whisper of peace...

Then, we cannot expect that a home, where we are planning to spend some time and where they already have problems enough to bring 50 children to school and provide them with food, water, clothes, etc., opens its doors for us only for love's sake, just becoming another mouth to feed. It is not the same being a volunteer in our own country or being a volunteer in a different continent in somebody else's home. Here, we can offer our time and efforts and later go back home where we are catered with everything. In Africa, to become an assistant requires something else.

When we arrive at an orphanage, we become part of it, another member, which means more food, more water, more electricity, more dirty clothes, more washing-up liquid, more bed covers, etc. It is clear that the romantic idea that Occidentals have of bringing our big love and tenderness to those people, of spending time by their side and exchanging our knowledge with them is highly praisable. But there is something that we should never forget: LOVE ON ITS OWN DOES NOT FEED CHILDREN.

I've been moving in and out of Kenya for almost four years now, living with those incredible peoples, and I swear that they really appreciate the time we spend with them, the moments we listen to their problems, the time we play with their children... But, no matter how strong you might me hugging them, if in that moment their stomachs are empty, and there is nothing to bring to their mouths, our big love will be vanished to ashes. And it is normal and understandable: human beings can only allow themselves the pleasure of loving and dreaming when the basic human needs are covered (drinking, eating and sleeping).

As a consequence, with my full belly, I allow myself a dream: to fill their bellies so that they can also dream. And among many others, the best ways to achieve such a dream are those where governments will never invest enough, building up strong and long-lasting infrastructures, with auto-sustainable projects which can bring them autonomy and better life standards and, ABOVE OF ALL, improving the whole institution of education by building up better schools, with better materials, improving teachers formation, and working on the basis of universal values and human rights.

Susanna