The HISANI orphanage in Mwanza, Tanzania
Posted
by
David
on 27 Feb 2009
VentureCo have been supporting HISANI for over 5 years with several groups visiting two orphanages near Mwanza on the shores of Lake Victoria. Hisani provide accommodation, food and extra tuition to the resident children with the aim of better equipping them for adult life. What a great concept and we in VentureCo are very proud to be associated with Hisani's founder Ferdnand Fredrick or "Freddy". Over the years we have helped him construct classrooms, dormitories and kitchens at the two sites.
In December 2007 Kilimanjaro Summer Venture went to Mwanza to help construct a new toilet block at the new site. Alex, Lills, Betsy, Nick, Ellie and Hannah lived onsite and helped with the construction work in the mornings and gave after school English and maths lessons in the afternoon. Living in Mwanza is a whole new experience, we part self-cooked and were occasionally fed by the local "mamas". The local cuisine took a bit of getting used to but we never went hungry. The weather was always hot but not always dry. When it rains in Mwanza . . it rains! Sheets of rain would pound the roof until it seemed that there couldn't be any rain left in the sky. yet after a couple of hours of sunshine, everything would dry off and we'd be back to normal. Learning to carry 20l water buckets on our heads took some getting used to but we mastered the technique with repeated effort!
Teaching the kids was the highlight of the day. Using plenty of teaching aids we soon had them drawing, writing and making paper models based on the "theme for the day". Funnily enough, because we were under the flight path of Mwanza's airport, light aircraft featured in almost all the kids' drawings.
Before leaving we bought a collection of school books for the orphanage and constructed a set of shelves so they could be kept in good condition for years to come. Leaving the project site but listening to 40 bouncy kids singing to us as we left was one of many lasting memories of our two weeks living with the Hisani children in Mwanza.