2020 Wrapped
2020 was not the year anyone thought it would be. In Australia, we started the year with our home ravaged by bushfires, and in Tanzania and across East Africa, the crops were threatened by locust swarms and saw a wet season more intense than others. This is not to mention the global BLM movement that was re-ignited by the death of George Floyd, Breanna Taylor and so many others. The silenced crisis in Yemen, the conflict in Artsakh (Armenia), the bombing in Beirut, the protests in India and Hong Kong and the imprisonment of the Uyghurs in China. And of course the coronavirus, which devastated the world, taking too many too soon. 2020 was not at all the year we expected.
However, despite all of this we are so grateful to have been able to continue our work with CHETI NGO in Tanzania. Since 2019 and the opening of Cheti 7, our enrolment has increased from 19 to 36 and can now provide water to the school children and small community surrounding our school. This is our smallest school, yet so important. Cheti 7 is located in the outskirts of Nadasaito in the Maasai lands. Having access to education for the Maasai children and community is so important!
When our schools closed due to the coronavirus in Tanzania, we provided all of the Cheti staff, 75 teachers, drivers, cooks, cleaners and security guards, with rice to feed their families. When schools reopened, we had a 96% attendance rate on the first day!!
With so many out of work, we also provided rice to some of the most vulnerable in our community.
We are now in the final stages of finishing Cheti 8, our sister school! Just a few kilometres away from Cheti 7, Cheti 8 will be more accessible to more children in this rural community. Especially during the wet season when the river floods and cannot be crossed safely. We are so excited to open Cheti 8 in January 2021!
Through Project Poppy, we are now supporting 16 widows in the Sokon 1 region. With these micro finance loans, these women are able to start or expand their business to help support their families, some of which are affected by HIV. Unfortunately, due to the travel restrictions, we have not been able to progress with building the infrastructure for the vocational centre, however, hope that this can be resumed in the near future!
Finally, over Christmas we again provided rice to all of the workers at Cheti Schools, the widows we support and those in the community who needed it most, including a blind man and woman and families affected by HIV.
Despite the hurdles and heartache that happened in 2020, we are so thankful to have still been able to support those in Tanzania (who Maeve misses dearly!). We are always overwhelmed and forever grateful to our supporters, those who donate regularly and those who help out when they can. A huge thank you to Glenfield Public School, Kids Korner Day Care and the Helensburgh Lions club for your continued and generous support. To all of our regular donors, the teaching staff at Glenfield Public, Troy Waters, Gina Krohn and Maeve’s colleagues at Macquarie University, thank you for your kindness and donations. We wouldn’t be able to achieve what we have without your support!
So with 2020 behind us, we are looking towards 2021 to be better and brighter and to smash more goals! We are so excited to open Cheti 8 in a couple of weeks and continue building on what we’ve created so far for Project Poppy. What we’ve been able to achieve in 2020 has been incredible in light of the global circumstances and we can’t wait to see what the future holds!
Asante sana! Thank you very much!!