NEWS
LATEST NEWS.
OUR FIRST VEHICLE
Thank you to generous donations in May of 2021 we were able to make another dream of ours to own our own vehicle a reality.
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This vehicle will provide transportation for our children. We will be able to make home visits to children we support in neighboring communities and take our children to doctor's appointments.
Babati is surrounded by beautiful National Parks. Our children will have a wonderful opportunity to explore their native Tanzania!
NEWSLETTER
UPDATES.
GREETINGS
MARCH 2022
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Dear everyone,
You may be aware that yesterday was International Women’s Day. International Women's Day takes place each year on March 8th and commemorates the “cultural, political and socioeconomic achievements of women”.
Here in Babati, MAHOCE was asked to join in the annual parade through town, ending at the sports field. Afterward, four different women’s groups visited MAHOCE, bringing in-kind donations and spending time encouraging our young girls. In total they brought 175kgs of rice, 30kgs of maize flour, 2 boxes of bar soap, 20kgs of beans, 20kgs of sugar, 2 boxes of sanitary napkins, a dozen tubes of toothpaste, 30ltrs of cooking oil, 2kg of small fishes and a very nice cake. We were happy to be included, and it brought tremendous community wide visibility to MAHOCE.
MAHOCE is proud of our efforts to support young girls and women and to prioritize their education. You can support our efforts here.
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(L) Maria our Matron and (R) Selina, MAHOCE's head teacher
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"The Generation of Rights and Equality for Sustainable Development"
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NOVEMBER 2021
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Hello friends and supporters of Harambee and MAHOCE,
Thanksgiving is when family and friends take time to reflect on all they are grateful for. This year Thanksgiving represents a time of amazing gratitude, for MAHOCE and me personally!
It has been a LONG time since my last email and so much has happened, mostly exciting!
I want to once again thank everyone who contributed this year to our GO FUND ME page and helped us purchase our Land Cruiser and the accompanying trailer. It has already provided many wonderful opportunities!
Shortly after the purchase the Land Cruiser, you may have heard that I got very, very sick. Perhaps you received a personal letter from my mother during this time explaining my situation. My condition was so serious my parents came to visit me and oversee my medical care in Tanzania. They brought me to the States in October and enrolled me in Bryn Mawr Rehab. I am currently going to physical, occupational, and speech therapy 2x per week. Hopefully, I will be home in Tanzania just prior to Christmas. My daughter, wife, and the Centre in Babati are doing well, awaiting my return. The staff, board, community, and the children have all stepped up and the Centre is running at full speed! The children are continuing in school and preparing to begin a new year this January, 2022. Thanks to everyone who prayed for me, was concerned about my health, and sent me cards, either in Tanzania or to my parent’s house in the USA.
In July, MAHOCE won the World Understanding Grant presented by Alpha Delta Kappa International! Project C.H.E.A.R. (making a) Children’s Home (with) Education (and) Agriculture (a) Reality, is a $50,000 biennial grant. MAHOCE has been striving for this since 2012 and we were finally chosen. What a blessing! This will allow us to build our own Centre with dormitories, classrooms, library/media center, and more. The compound will also have running water, a garden, store room, kitchen, bathrooms and showers. The adjacent land will be used as a play area. I found out about the grant just at the time I became sick, so I am happy to officially let everyone know about this wonderful project.
We are so fortunate that for the second year we were able to work with the Swedish Consular and have two student interns from Germany volunteer at MAHOCE. During their visit the girls participated in counseling sessions, observed in the classrooms, and helped around the Centre. It was a valuable experience for all involved. We are appreciative of this continuing partnership.
One of our newest board members has made a brand new Harambee Website! This is another dream come true! Have a look here!
Just as this has been a year of great blessing, our wish from the Harambee Foundation and MAHOCE is that you will experience many blessings this Thanksgiving.
Warmest Thanks,
Joshua
MARCH 2021
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Greetings from MAHOCE,
This year is off to a great start. The new school year began in early January and the children’s first break is coming up for Easter. MAHOCE is now supporting 84 children, if you can imagine that! In 2018 MAHOCE supported just 54 students of whom four were in college. Now in 2021, we have six children attending college and five more high school graduates from November 2020 who are awaiting their selections for higher education studies! That is a dramatic increase and as you can imagine a bit of an expense!
You might ask, “How was MAHOCE able to support an increase of 30 children in just three years?” Well, the answer is because of your support and care for our mission and our children. For this I cannot thank you enough! Going hand in hand with this is the tremendous community support MAHOCE has been receiving through local in-kind and cash donations. Between 2018 and the 2020, MAHOCE witnessed a 60% increase in overall community donations! We are extremely thankful for this support. It is a testimony to the value of MAHOCE in our region. Check out this short video, shot earlier this month by a regional businessman who came to MAHOCE on his birthday with gifts for OUR kids.
MAHOCE has a lot on its plate for 2021. We are certainly feeling blessed, however, challenges still remain. In particular, we need to find ways for our children to continue on with higher levels of education beyond high school. In Tanzania, it is the same as in the States. Unless you learn a trade or go to college there is not much opportunity. The biggest challenge is actually covering the college kids’ meal plans, and not just their tuition.
Some of you already know MAHOCE has recently being given a “once in a lifetime opportunity” to purchase a 12+ passenger, heavy duty Land Cruiser and trailer from a missionary who is returning to Maryland with his family this July. Since we began in 2007, MAHOCE has never been able to own a vehicle. Now we are being given a chance to buy a large, reliable, vehicle which meets the needs of the Centre for a very discounted price. To learn more you can visit our GoFundMe page. We are on our way to reaching our goal, and any size donation will go a long way helping us get there.
And as always, if you are interested in supporting our general fund, which as mentioned, includes 5 new college students who need your support, please visit our website. We are hoping as restrictions lift and more people are vaccinated the Harambee Foundation will once again be able resume public fundraisers like California Pizza Kitchen and our annual H5K Charity Race. Until then, we rely on individual support from home. We are grateful that in 2020 MAHOCE was able to make it through without much hardship and has continued to be blessed. We are confident the same will be said at the close of 2021. Thank you!
Blessings & Most Regards,
Joshua
OCTOBER 2020
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I am greeting you today with some exciting news from here at MAHOCE in Tanzania!
I hope this newsletter finds you well. Here in Tanzania, life continues on as normal as our economy never shut down, although the schools were for 3 months. Now the children have already been back in school for the past 3 months. However, the shutdown of schools here for those three months has had a direct impact on our education budget for the remainder of the year, as if things were not tight enough already! The government has instituted that all schools are now open on Saturdays from 8am until 12:30pm. Also, the school days, Monday through Friday, have been extended by 1.5 hrs and children are no longer able to walk home for lunch. Previously, some children would have to walk a mile home for lunch and then a mile back, which could take an hour or more. As a result, all students have now been required to bring a contribution of corn, beans, salt and cooking oil in order to eat lunch at the school. The elementary schools all needed to hire cooks as a result, and that cost was passed onto the students. The teachers are receiving a stipend for their overtime hours, which was added to our students' fees as well. As you can see, we need your support now more than ever in order to help meet these immediate, unexpected needs. MAHOCE still owes several schools for these new fees and food contributions. They are working with us, because they know what MAHOCE does and how many children we support, but at the end of the day, we will need to pay all fees and contributions. If you would like to help us get over the hump, you can donate now by clicking here.
For those of you who provide educational sponsorships for our students, letters will be sent out near the end of October asking for your continued support for the 2021 school year. Please understand that your child’s school fees will increase, as explained in the above paragraph. If you are interested in learning more about sponsoring one of our children you can send your inquiry to info@harambeefoundation.org
As you may recall, the school year in Tanzania ends in December and secondary school graduates finish in November. I am proud to say that MAHOCE will have four secondary school graduates this year, as well as six graduates from primary school. We also have one student, Mwanaidi, who just finished Advanced Level 6, which is the equivalent of adding two extra years of secondary school. Only the best students can qualify to attend. Congratulations to Mwanaidi, who just graduated 2nd in her class and will be moving onto university next year to attend medical school. Also, our student Godfrey, who has been in medical school in Dar es Salaam for the past three years, is graduating this November. Praise God for the achievements of MAHOCE and all of our students' successes in 2020!
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GODFREY (L) and MWANAIDI (R)
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So, now onto some VERY GREAT news and a long standing answer to prayer.
Rick Joyner, the founder of Morning Star Ministries once said, “Many will come at first because a new work is always exciting. However, they will not have the stability or endurance to stay through the wilderness and dry times, which we must always go through to get to the place where we receive the promises of God and the Promised Land, to the fulfillment of the promises. In fact, we can see in both Scripture and history that the quicker and easier the promises are fulfilled, the less significant the purpose.” We are also reminded in Scripture, “So I say to you, ask and keep on asking and it shall be given you; seek and keep on seeking and you shall find; knock and keep on knocking and the door shall be opened to you…” Luke 11:9-10 and again in Luke 18:1-5 that “Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up…”
So what is this all about? Since the start of my mission 13.5 years ago, in 2007, Harambee Foundation, MAHOCE and I, have had one persistent prayer: that one day MAHOCE would eventually have the resources to buy our own land and slowly build our own Centre. We would have our own gardens, milk cows, chickens, and fruit trees. Eventually, MAHOCE would become more and more self-sustainable. PRAISE THE LORD ALMIGHTY! Thanks to a very significant private donation, our prayer has finally come true.
Following this tremendous blessing, just last month, MAHOCE board members met with the Babati Town Council Land Officers. After looking through their maps, it was determined that there was just one plot left in town that could be zoned according to fit MAHOCE’s requirements as a Children’s Home. The land was for a private nursery school, which instead was granted to us at a 33% discounted price because we provide a critical social service to our community! We still have over 2/3 of our donation remaining in order to start developing our plot almost immediately. What an exciting time!! I should also mention that directly connected to the west end of our property is a very large field zoned as open space. This means the children will also have a great play area right next door. What a blessing all around!
This special donation is specifically designated for helping MAHOCE create our own self-sustaining children’s home and school. Our normal operating costs and meeting the daily needs of our children remain the same, so we continue to need your help.
We truly feel blessed during this time when so many others are suffering. We pray for you, as we know you pray for Mariam & me, MAHOCE, and all our children.
God Bless,
Joshua
JULY 2020
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Greetings from Babati.
Our Annual H5K Charity Race has been cancelled due to the global Covid-19 pandemic, but all is not lost! We are having the H5K Virtual Happy Feet Walk, Run Bike, or Let Your Happy Feet Rest Challenge for the entire month of July. What is a virtual race you ask? Good question! A virtual race is one where you go to our website listed below and sign up for any of these events. Participation takes place on any day in July, any time of the day or night and in any town, city, state or country. The H5K Virtual Happy Feet event is free and we hope it will inspire you to stay active and stay healthy. You can also use this as a training tool. It is important for us to let you know that during this pandemic we sure could use your help! On the virtual race web page there is a place to donate, both online and offline. We have generously been given prizes for three great raffles too. The winner of the first drawing will receive $500 cash. The winner of the second drawing will receive a $200 Amazon gift card. If you should win that gift, please sign up for Amazon Smile. The spelling there is Harembee Foundation. A special thanks to California Pizza Kitchen in Plymouth Meeting for donations our third prize drawing for a $50 CPK gift card. Our fourth place drawing is an online purchase of $25 from Philadelphia Runner.Click HERE to learn more!
In other news SCHOOLS HAVE REOPENED IN TANZANIA! Our children are all back in school and we have restarted our Saturday Feeding and Distribution Program! We need your help now because of the added expenses we incurred because of the virus and schools first closing and then reopening.
The biggest expense was unexpected travel costs for our students who were at college, going back-and-forth . Additionally, we needed to purchase things at the Centre like masks for all our children and staff and create and supply a hand sanitizing station for visitors. There are also new school fees because from the 3rd grade on they have added two extra hours to the school days and all grades now go to school on Saturday s a s well , from 8am - 12:30pm.
ANNOUNCEMENT: Prohibited to enter inside before washing your hands and wearing a mask. - Management
In other exciting news MAHOCE has been asked by the government to REGISTER AS A CHILDREN'S HOME . This is an additional registration beyond our recognition as a non-government organization (NGO). This is wonder ful for us bu t we have to learn new laws and meet new requirements , like constructing a station (sink s ) where our children can wash their clothes . We also need to expand and make significant repairs to our outdoor kitchen area , which w e are still trying to finish . These renovations have strained our resources in a time which is already, as you know, difficult.
If you are able to support our ongoing efforts , which help our children and meet the requirements to register as a Children's Home, please sign up for our H5K Virtual Happy Feet Event or visit our website to make a donation. Thank You!
Most Regards,
Joshua
