Saturday, December 5, 2009

Nkoranga & Good Hope orphanages (Nov. 29)

some of the kids outside of Nkoranga Orphanage

Boss with one of the babies who was fussy...
...until she swaddled him

David getting some love


Me and my gear

David meets his other half...also named David!

Fratern and Mama Pendo holding a boy that called me something but it was in Swahili...so he got away with it.


Good Hope Orphanage: beware, there is no transparency here. It's all in the Directors name and they get charitable money, but from the looks of it it's not getting to the kids. oh, and he has the kids go out to beg during the day like some Oliver Twist nightmare.

This shipping container (supposedly full of furniture) was a donation from Norway. Fat good it's doing sitting in the yard.

The bedrooms where children (the director tells us) sleep 3 to a bed. That's 6 to a bunk

The Good Hope kitchen

We came away from visiting two of the orphanages in town, Nkoranga and Good Hope, feeling a bit daunted. There is so much to do, so much to fix and so much that we just can't under stand. Why would you lay babies on urine soaked matresses that made the rooms reek, how can there be no running water and yet in the director's office there is a TV with a cable box? How can the government pass bill after bill making adoption so difficult for citizens and practically impossible for non-citizens and yet not offer any aid or support to it's orphans that they are effectively keeping orphans?

It is good that we are here and we've been lucky to have been put in contact with the right people who tell it to us straight. It's not about raising the money. We can get the money, and if you think about it money has been thrown at Africa for ages. It seems, at least in Tanzania, that the key is having the right people on the ground who can ensure that the money goes to where it is most needed it to go and can be there to consistently monitor and work within the system.

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