Hello,

I hope all are well. Just a little update from Tanzania. The centre now has 4 staff to help take care of the children. In the past the children had little support and this contributes to their current poor performance in school, and at the centre. A strong effort to change this is now being made. The first big step was to move Mamma Vumi from full time cook to full time Child-care. When first approaching Mamma Vumi with this idea she was shocked and said she didn't have any education for such a position. This may be true but the fact of the matter was that she had an overwhelming amount of experience working with children and we knew she would do a great job in the position. She decided she would try the position for a month. So far she has been doing a great job. Now every morning we can rest assured that all the children go to school, that their beds are made, that they fold their clothes, and most importantly, that they wash behind their ears.

We also have had two more youth move into the centre. Habiba is 14 years old and Zuena is 7 years old. Habibua and Zuena are sisters and before they were being supporting in their home. If possible we always try to keep the children in their homes, and their villages as this increases the child's chance of success. All the children at the centre cannot stay at their homes because of the highly negative situations in their homes. It recently came to the attention of Mamma Vumi and Neema that they were being forced by their mother to beg in the streets of Arusha, even though they were being provided with food and clothing and their school fees were paid. Obviously this is not a healthy situation for the girls to be living in so they have been moved back to the centre where they will be able to have access to continual support and have time to study. Habiba and Zuena will be staying in the Staff house with Mamma Vumi, Neema, and Mamma Irene.

Mamma Vumi has also done a home visit to Kelvin's home in Boma (a town about 30 min from the centre). It was found that the structure in the home was positive but that his Grandfather did not have the resources to care for him. It was also learned from the school in Boma that Kelvin could not transfer to the Maji ya Chai school for some reason. For this reason it is better to help Kelvin live with his Grandfather in Boma by providing the house with food, and paying Kelvin's school fees.

Thank-you to all have donated. Because of you the children's needs will be filled for the month of February!!! Please continue to support Sunrise of Life so that we will be able to fill the needs of the children in the coming months.

-Tom

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