Thursday, June 05, 2014

Creemore Echo: May 2014...Celebrate the MAJENGO miracle!!

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Celebrate the Majengo miracle
By: Kristi Green


May 29, 2014


Written for the CREEMORE ECHO,  MAY 2014...
By Majengo c0-founder: Lynn Connell

TO DONATE online: www.majengo.org
thank you!!!

In Swahili, the word majengo means “a building up.” But for me, what has happened in the last six years, means a miracle.
Six years ago, while teaching painting in Africa, I was taken to visit 52 little kids, ages two to nine, huddled together on a wet, mud floor in a leaking, dark foyer set up as a makeshift daycare, with virtually no resources: no food, no furniture, no teaching supplies – and, in most cases, no one on the planet left to care for them.
Ragged, starving, and in some cases wandering from farm to farm begging for food and lodging, they’d been gathered together by local farmers, their wives cooking out back over fire, serving the children the only meal they would have in a day.
That day, I, along with Charles Luoga, the HIV/AIDS Project Coordinator of the local NGO, Institute of Cultural Affairs (ICA) Tanzania, made a commitment to help those kids in whatever way we could. Miraculously and amazingly, from that moment on, with the help of many generous people, Majengo now thrives.

Building Majengo
Charles found a half-built home down the road and made a deal with the owner: we finance the building of the house and get to use it for four years. I came back to Canada and brought Majengo to Creemore. Creemore folks, family and friends raised $23,000. One year later, the kids moved in, along with a hard-working, local staff of 12, all of whom had cooked for the kids for free that whole first year. They are still there.
Two years later, the government shut down five corrupt orphanages on the safari route. These had been set up as businesses with a steady stream of money going into the pockets of their owners, while the kids were overcrowded, sick and starving. In one day, the government dropped off 67 new kids to Majengo. I even had my life threatened by one Director whose orphanage had been closed.

At Majengo, we went into rescue mode. Our cooks were now feeding more than 100 people per meal, three times a day. Terrified and starving children who had been torn from shocking, indescribable circumstances, were now thrown together after eating leaves off the trees and garbage from the street, stampeding the kitchen with other equally frightened children, who were forced into a new cohabitation with each other.
Total chaos. Yet our staff pulled through, and within a month the security, health and well-being of those kids changed radically. Today, they live as one huge happy family… the older kids look after the younger, and a staff of 17 cooks, cleaners, watchmen and teachers are committed to raising them, lovingly, as their own.

Majengo grows
We’ve come a long way in such a short time. Matt McKissock and his family from Warren, Pennsylvania came on as a third partner, joining Majengo Canada and ICA Tanzania, (which each have official charitable status), to issue tax receipts for donations.

Two years ago, the local Majengo community government gifted us 10 acres of open clean land just outside the village of MtoWaMbu, which is an hour’s drive from the famous NgoroNgoro Crater safari. With the help of many supporters, we built three big houses, a dining hall, kitchen and soccer field. Last June, we relocated 83 kids, plus chickens, goats, sheep and puppies into their own brand new Majengo Children’s Home. Your money has been put to tremendous use.
Just this year, we hand-drilled 40 metres down to flourish unlimited fresh water to Majengo and equipped the kitchen with two top-notch stoves to help relieve our cook’s respiratory/eye problems. 
We also planted three huge vegetable gardens, with each child choosing, planting and watering their own tree, and we built a security fence dancing with bougainvillea.






Since January, 73 Majengo kids have been sponsored into Mama Anna’s English Medium School where Susan Lee’s daughter Simone Lee Hamilton just returned from six months of teaching. Simone will be at Sunday’s party, regaling you with fascinating stories of working and living on the ground at Majengo. 

We strive to improve the lives of the surrounding Majengo community. We do this by offering education to vulnerable children who do not live at Majengo, at our onsite preschool. The school is staffed by three trained teachers who work side by side under the direction of our ICA Tanzanian ground support and village leaders.

What do we need?
Since we started, our operating costs have risen from $55,000 to $135,000. This covers food, medical, education, accommodation, sports and local staffing. Other than the required bookkeeping and government auditing, postal costs and photocopying, every cent that we raise goes directly to supporting the children. Our directors and volunteers do so entirely at their own expense.
Can you imagine feeding 83 kids and putting them to bed… in the dark? This year, on top of our operating expenses, we’re aiming to raise $50,000 for solar energy. We’re wired for electricity, but it could be years before we get connected to the grid. For more information, check out www.smilemajengo.com.
Simply put, we need your continuing enthusiasm and support, as founders and in a way, “surrogate parents,” to give these kids a chance and help them grow through childhood until the day they leave Majengo.
Without your help, Majengo would still be only a dream. To make a donation, visit www.majengo.org or send a cheque (payable to Majengo Canada) to 284 Major Street, Toronto, Ontario, M5S 2L6.
Since Majengo opened, the lives of 83 vulnerable, orphaned and displaced children, many of whom lost their parents to HIV/AIDS, have changed astoundingly. Today, they thrive – because of you.
Here is to you – our friends and family in the Creemore area, who have supported the magical Majengo Children’s Home, in central Tanzania, since our beginning in 2008.
Please join us on Sunday, June 1 to celebrate Majengo and to celebrate you. The event is free; all are welcome.

Celebrate the Majengo Children’s Home
Sunday, June 1, 2 to 5 pm
Creativity Art Retreat, 8961 County Road 9, Dunedin
Food, bar and live music with Rusty McCarthy
Free
www.majengo.org
Lynn Connell is Majengo Canada Director and Co-Founder.

PS...THANK YOU ALL FOR COMING TO OUR CELEBRATION PARTIES...We raised over $15,000, made lots of new friends and supporters for Majengo...huge thanks to Lyndon Wiebe for delicious food...Rusty McCarthy and Anne Lindsay and her band for enchanting music, John and Shauna Connell for their stunning Toronto home, and to everyone who volunteered....

Sunday, December 01, 2013

2013 A FABULOUS YEAR...thanks to you!! UPDATE!

JAMBO!! and KARIBU..welcome!!!

Here's to another wonderful year at Majengo....with so many great things happening this year...season's greetings and thank you so much for all  your help; without you, Majengo would be lost in a dream...but today, 5 years later, it is a miracle..

 Just got back, and today sitting at my desk in Toronto - outside it's cold, wet and gray  - and I can't stop thinking of the kids at Majengo and that hot, pulsating life there, the music, the drumming, the explosion of joy and love, the fun, no kidding, it's like one huge happy family, with our kids, everyday...blossoming and growing...truly a dream come true.


2013...not in order or in importance, it is all important!
...but in a nutshell:

December 2013 - Majengo now supports 140 children...86 living in with all their basic needs being wonderfully met, growing bigger and taller and flourishing, and another 56 living out with family or friends,  Majengo supports their education.




...as the only officially government recognized orphanage facility in the entire district of Monduli, we welcomed an additional 12 vulnerable kids into Majengo, selected by govt social worker Mr. Denis, and double checked, interviewed and verified for authentic needs by our ICA Tanzania project coordinator Charles Luoga.

  
55 Majengo children will be enrolled into Mama Anna's English taught Primary school...

We have 55 kids enrolling in Jan. '14! With 29 more to go... This is incredible and by learning English, these kids, chosen by our head teacher Grayson and  ICA Charles not only for their marks but for how hard they are trying, a much better chance to succeed in their future life.

55 donors have chosen to sponsor 55 children into Mama Anna's starting in January each one commiting to helping 'their' child through whatever grades they have left in primary school...!!


English is not taught at local govt primary schools. Most of our kids have been going to the local govt school down the road, until now. Secondary school is taught in English..miraculously the kids at govt primaryschools are expected to head into secondary school with a good handle on English, but without instruction they have no chance. Now, 55 of our 84 kids are heading into English taught school.

Thank you to their sponsors...
Our goal: to register all our kids into Mama Annas...29 to go..at $540 a kid per year...

To sponsor a child into Mama Annas: please email me at lynnconnell@sympatico.ca to arrange your sponsorship...

Majengo childen celebrating at Mama Annas...

New Sponsor coordinator: Simone Lee Hamilton, our Toronto volunteer teacher is there now until May 2014, teaching at Majengo and Mama Annas...she will be responsible for updating sponsors with pictures and updates of their kids. Thank you Simone..

 
2014 OPERATING BUDGET - $130,000
We spent 3 intensive days in October, with ICA project coordinator Charles Luoga, volunteers Matt Brewster and Heidi Wiebe, Majengo staff head Killo, logistics coordinator Hamidu and local govt. leader Mayunga detailing our 2014 operating budget for 140 kids and a staff of 20: their food, maintenance, medical, education, clothing, trips and sporting needs, totalling $130,000: everything to ensure our kids a wonderful life...

Mayungs, Killo, Charles, Matt, Lynn, Hamidu and Heidi
FUNDRAISING...in 2013...thanks to all our Majengo team...
* we managed to cover our operating costs for 2013: $115,000
* we supported 30 kids into Mama Annas...@$540 each: $16,200.
* we raised another $130,000 to build phase 1 of our new Majengo

All of our fundraising is through the generosity of friends and family and their friends in Canada and the United States from the proceeds of birthday parties, gifts, prizes, family foundations and international Rotary, and you....
 
In September, we raised over $45,000 at Dunedin, Toronto, Washington and Warren fundraisers..huge thanks to everyone who came and donated, who helped with the parties...to fiddle/violinist Anne Lindsey and her band in Toronto, to Toronto caterer Lyndon Wiebe and Paul Copeland for lending us his loft...to Ian Ashburgh in Warren for his Grains and Grapes funder..to all 4 Matts, Di, Kym, Jamie and Chrissie for organizing, to Alicia and Matt Brewster in Washington..and to all of the great people with their ongoing support of Majengo in every way, thanks!!

Hot off the press!! for US donors only!!
Check out our Majengo fundraiser on CrowdRise (http://www.crowdrise.com/majengochildren) - a great and easy way to donate as well... 


NEW MAJENGO FACILITY...the local goverment gave us 10 acres of open clean land in the valley of the Rift Valley. We started building in Sept 2012 with Warren's Jamie Bees and her Presbyterian friends, and finished most of phase 1 in June 2013, completing 3 big spacious houses for big boys, big girls, and a centre house for little boys and girls - each with a room for a mama and volunteer..open, airy and solid..with huge thanks to Charles for overseeing everyday, a team of 20 local builders,

Uncle Ed from Toronto,

..assisted by Canadian tour company GiveGetGo and their volunteers
(see givegetgo.ca), who have successfully organized 2 trips this year, with more scheduled in 2014, where volunteers spend 8 full days working on construction at Majengo, coupled with an exciting safari to the Serengeti and Ngora Crater, visit local peoples and events and on to the beach in Zanzibar...

..and so many others...





Especially the children... getting their new home ready...

 ...washing the floors...

...sorting out clothes

Diana moving clothes












 ...dismantling 35 bunk beds at the old Majengo and transporting them over to the new Majengo...and putting them all together...





  
MOVING DAY....June 9, 2013...finally....
Moved 86 kids in, carrying chickens, ducks and puppies a few days later...sorry I wasn't there and didn't get a great shot of that but I can assure you it must have been crazy...walking the 3 dusty miles from the old location to our new Majengo...animals tucked firmly into their little arms, with great determination...squawking, squirming, leaping alway....

dining room, office and kitchen half finished...

PHASE ONE construction: thanks to Warren for raising $130,000, Margie Zeidler for designing and to Charles our project coordinator supreme, keeping costs down as much as possible: 3 houses, kitchen, dining and office spaces ..washrooms inside and out....bravo!

PHASE TWO construction:
...currently raising $85,000 for a 4th house, resource library, soccer field, net ball court (our girls going to Mama Anna's just came first in the entire district in Netball for the school) and playground...landscaping, security fence...vegetable gardens, goats, cows....

If you would like to help us, please donate online on our website or by cheque to Majengo Canada or Warren Majengo Foundation...see our website: www.majengo.org



Kids playing on the sandy floor of the new dining room space, which Charles decided to close in, rather than open..so that we can rent it out eventually, as conference space, sustainability for Majengo!


 OUR STAFF...


 At left, some of our 20 wonderful staff, without whom we could not operate...with over 100 mouths to feed 3 x a day, showers, washing clothes...no electricity.

Can you imagine trying to put 84 kids to bed every night without light?


At our new Majengo, we have a much bigger albeit half-finished kitchen...where the meals are deliciously and magically prepared...ugali, beans, rice, meat, silvery fish, chicken, green..chai..

Cooks and cleaners live out, but come to Majengo every day...working hard to keep our kids and their clothing, clean and well fed...

Our staff..who love the kids as their own...never ever complain about the amount of work...ever!!...most of whom started with us from the very beginning and worked for free that whole first year before we got started. We've created a micro - finance program to loan our staff money to enable them to enrol their own children into prohibitively expensive secondary school education.


Staff, voluneers and visitors at an October staff meetingm where each member of the staff are encourages to speak of successes and challenges, issues and needs, creating trust, care and, communication and connection between all three groups...


VOLUNTEERS:
Big thanks to the generosity and enthusiasm of volunteers who give their time, expertise and love
to our kids, from their hearts..

This year welcoming Canadian Heidi Weibe and Matt Brewster,  from the Warren Pa area...both of whom came for 6 months and might well stay forever....
Matt with kids in front of 55 brand new matresses

They are here assisting Charles, our main guy and Majengo co-founder from ICA Tanzania: Matt Brewster on-site with our new build construction, working side by side with local workers, learning Swahili in only a few months
Heidi Wiebe doing bead work with the kids
and spending most nights at
Majengo - showing movies on his laptop,  hanging out and lying under the stars teaching the kids the galaxy...check Matt out on Facebook for wonderful persona anecdotes and updates..

..and Heidi Wiebe from ICA Canada, assisting Charles with ICA work in the office, evolving into full out work for Majengo ..helping wonderfully to organize our updates, charts, children's bios and photos, financial statements and everything...
 
...and Simone Lee Hamilton, from Toronto, her 4th time over, just graduated from Queen's University in Early Childhood Development, just arrived in November '13 to teach English and no doubt all the other subjects at Mama Anna's and Majengo for 6 months, bringing over lots of friends, and encouraging their parents to sponsor Majengo kids into Mama Annas...bravo to Simone, and her mom Susan for bringing her here..

Canadian violinist Anne Lindsay from pop group Blue Rodeo singing and playing for the kids...

...my friend BH Yael...taking hours of video...teaching the kids how to shoot film and take great pics with the cameras...


Matt's wife mom, Ronnie
fully equipped with dental equipment to test every one of our kids' teeth...making detailed records with the help of Matt's 13 year old daughter Jacqueline, her second trip to Majengo....


Matt McKissock, ICA Tanzania Brian Gick and team spent June in meetings, proposing a 10 year financial plan re education and living costs...huge undertaking, thanks to Charles, Doris and the board of ICA Tanzania, Heidi Weibe and Matt Brewster and everyone who participated.

Charles Luoga: ICA Tanzania, Lynn Connell: Majengo Canada and Matt McKissock: Warren Majengo Foundation from Warren Pennsylvania

Majengo Canada was absent and caught up all July thanks to an exceptional education committee in Toronto with Simone Lee Hamilton, Seanna Connell, Judy MacLellan, Nancy Goodman and Cathi Bremner
......assisted by Maxine Sidran..


my brother Rick and Baby Anna

 My brother Rick...with 4 enthusiastic and supportive friends from Canada...all contributing in their own wonderful way...and in the end each sponsoring a few kids to Mama Annas, researching and fundraising for solor....and maybe a new truck for majengo....

Sue Freeman on her second trip to Majengo, Sherri and Lisa..
Suzanne with the kids...






 Big thanks to Lisa, Sherri, Denise and Suzanne for continuing huge support when we got home. Fundraising, arranging bookkeeping, organizing and secretarial help and researching for solar....and to my brother Rick..for putting this all together...a great trip with a great group...




 AND SANTA...last, and not least....
 we need lots of stuff for Christmas, Dear Santa...

• our operating costs went up to $130,000 for next year...
• we have 29 more kids hoping to get into Mama Anna's January.

 We need new shoes..if someone out there knows Mr.Bata please let us know...



•3 pairs shoes per kid per year $75 x 86 kids...


•a second water tower and $3,000 to pay Mr Spears to drill us our own well and a solar pump to pump it up into the water tower...

•electricity!! working on it..and big thanks to Lisa Oelke from Toronto who is researching a solar system for Majengo...and Santa.. we will need money for that...$3,000.


 oh and Santa, we need furniture, badly.....our kids are still lined up in rows patiently eating their dinners on the floor!

 Dining room tables, benches. a couch and chairs for our new houses are desperately appreciated... tables $80.
Benches $20...Couches $95...




OUR RED TRUCK died...we have no wheels...Our visitors run around in tuk tuks like this, but we walk....Santa...we have two suggestions for you.. or maybe, cause we've been real good...both!!

This is Dr. John's 3 year old Izuzu truck..he will sell it to us for $14,000


or...we could buy something like this..at around $10,000 to carry us to school



with love and thanks Santa...for yet a wonderful 2013, 
from all of us children of Majengo....



Tuesday, June 18, 2013

MAJENGO KIDS move into their new home!!! June 2013

Jambo!!
Back home!!! reeling from the last 13 days in Tanzania, magnificent trip and well worth the current jet lag experience now...we did it! after 9 months of construction, beginning September 2012, Majengo gave birth to its brand new home!
With 3 big new houses designed by Margie Zeidler, finished and ready to go!
plus a big dining room, kitchen and offices (the last three almost built as i left last Friday..),  72 kids moved in, in complete darkness Sunday June 09, ecstatic and happy....
Sorry for not keeping this updated when i was there, everything technical for me was down.

Flew over with Ed Nedzielski, a guy i barely knew from Toronto who for whatever reasons i invited to fly with me..the best choice ever as he plugged in and hit the ground running...right up to the moment we moved the kids in, a paintbrush in hand, sticky thick dark brown oil, the frames and doors of all three houses had to be painted with brushes with hairs flying every which way, a challenge but we did it!
Windows went in, had to be scrapped down with the one remaining razor we brought over out of 5....clearing...rooms swept and swept, the kids running from our current space through the back woods leaping across 20 minutes of skinny trails, muddy or dusty, everyday rushing just to be there
working alongside the 19 local workers who've been on the job doing everything by hand since September...mixing cement, chopping huge stones, carrying, lifting, hammering, building..all from scratch, plus....Ed..me,
Charles (our ICA project coordinator on the ground), Heidi Weibe an ICA Canada volunteer who is there working with Charles for a year, as is Warren's Matt Brewster, on the site everyday as Charles" right hand man....what an amazing team!!
Day one...with 5 days to go before the move in...houses 1 and 2 emmersed with 4 inches of water covering the floor, impossible i thought to ever get these houses together by the weekend...the cement they had mixed covering the floors had cracked, looking like a wide expanse of parched dry and crackling soil, had to be completely done again, with a guy on the floor chiseling out and filling the cracks....dragging in the hose and flooding the rooms with water to help set the cement. Impossible we all thought. But within those 5 days, the floors set...the kids raced over dancing all the way with long squeegie mops slapping the water out of the houses, letting them dry, and painting the entire surfaces up and into sheer darkness,  a flashlight showing the way...it was insane but we got it done!!

I'd forgotten how much I laugh and sing there!!! Telling stories over beer at night, laughing, relaxed, happy...by day a dark oily brown paintbrush in hand, or a broom, or rags, exhausted but working all of us so hard to get the job done! And in late afternoon, hop into the van and bumped back over a couple of miles to our current site where the kids were, our neighbours in mud and stick homes coming out and waving, JAMBO!!! all along the road...one day, my daughter Seanna and Sierra at Montcrest school in Toronto called at the exact time that 12 year old Sierra, my grandaughter giving a speech to 100 kids and teachers at Montcrest....the kids at majengo sang a couple of songs thanking Montcrest for their wonderful donation last year of over $3,500. raised by Sierra and her classmates....with our girl Tato fluent in English now...speaking and answering questions over the line, projected by mic in Toronto to a room of cheering and teary Toronto kids.
The kids were ecstatic about moving into their new home..running around, measuring shelving, furniture....Everyday asking When!! Everyday coming over to help.....
packing their clothes wrapped up in huge bundles of sheets, books, desks,
beds broken up and taken down stacked into the back of the old red truck, it took a day with 6 people puzzling how to put them together, floors painted, beds in...
shelves....mounds of clothing divided up, the big boys in house 1 painted bright lime green...the little boys and girls in house 2, mauve....and in house 3 the big girls, sky blue..clothing stacked in piles, divided up into all three houses, kids on the floor folding into piles, and onto the shelves...workmen installing door knobs, plumbing in...one toilet working - in the whole place, you head toward it TP in hand, a crew of 20 lounging on a big new porch taking a break, cheering you on....Hamidu our truck driver, hauling a long hose over into house 3...sloshing in the water to clean the floors, handfuls of soap thrown helter skelter the kids with squeegies again, pushing it around and out the door, dancing skipping singing....

Warren Majengo's Matt McKissock..with his 12 year old daughter Jaqueline arrived 6 days later, with his mom Diana, and  mother in law Ronnie, and a friend Pam from Warren......rolled up their sleeves and pitched in to help...Murray and Barbara Brown from Edmonton showed up on safari with their son and his girlfriend, a great visit first to the new site with a great talk under a canopy of trees meeting all of us....then over to the current Majengo...meeting the kids..what an experience for them, and what a great time to be there on the cusp of the kids moving in...

Ronnie, a dental hygienist laden down fully with dental equipment, setting up shop on the huge open porch of house 3...inspecting each child meticulously....for cavaties....any problems...
Diana taking pictures with Jacqueline recording, here with Fillipo....a roomful of waiting children inside, sitting on benches in a circle singing... 

The kids moved in at night....only Charles and Hamidu were there to help, it was so late they ushered us off, no doubt thinking that we would have only gotten in the way...we'd just had a welcoming celebration with all the local village leaders, speeches of welcoming and good wishes for the new site. Chickens and ducks were to be carried over by hand by the children a few days later....
flashlights led the way, we don't have electricity yet, here we are drawing by flashlight! could be months before it is installed, but our staff there  seem to take it all in stride..imagine putting 72 kids to bed....in the pitch dark...!
But they love it here!!!! Here's Jacqueline making bracelets with the kids

Ed and I and Matt brewster took off the next day on a 5 hour safari bumping along amidst zebra, giraffe, buffalo, elephants, wildebeasts roaming freely in the Manyara national park, 15 minutes from Majengo....monkeys and baboons leaping and jumping wildly threw canope of trees, knarled...sitting on logs cleaning and picking away in pairs.....another great day....wonderful meals with all of us, meetings about Phase 2....including a new library with computers, books, dvds, soccer field and playground, all three to be shared with the whole surrounding Majengo community...the idea being that our kids now living in homes far superior to surrounding mud and stick huts...will open up Majengo and share what we have.....
It continues to plague us, the financing of such a magical endeavour....this year our operating costs $105,000, plus about *15,000 more for special English education....with $85,000 more to raise to complete the buildings.....
Again and again, thank you to everyone who has contributed through these last 4 years...and welcoming you to bring Majengo to your friends and family....every bit counts, and I can only wish that you could be over there seeing where your dollars have gone...it is a miracle to me that we have gone this far!!!
And here we are, Charles on the left...me, with Matt expressing a little mock frustration! an incredible team with an incredibly wide expanse of skills, philosophy and methodology...but most of all, each and every one of us are drawn together with an incredible love for these kids...
we've watched them grow up....they are close to us as our own...

Home again...after 13 days, and for me back up to Dunedin....the night before i left June 2...ahuge party here to celebrate marci lipman's birthday, Rusty playing rock and roll, dancing, great food and wonderful people....her gifts, donations to Majengo....thank you everyone who participated....

will write again, when i am fully awake!!
xxLynn