Safina

Yesterday, in the blazing afternoon heat, JulieAnne (our MAF neighbour) and myself paid a visit to a SAFINA.

Safina is a centre for street children, or those children in desperate need of help with problem homes, or living on the city dump. It is a voluntary project, supported by various individuals and run by a German nurse, Andrea, who lives on our MAF compound (the very same lady who stitched up Esther's head for her in the scary accident last year!).

Being on the streets is a tough life anywhere, but here in Tanzania there is no government aid, no official projects, social welfare or any kind of centrally organised system to give a helping hand to disadvantaged children and their parents. Andrea was telling us yesterday that a child caught on the streets by the police can result in them being put into prison- Safina have children on their books as young as 4 years old who already have a prison record, since they were found living on the streets! Some of the children Safina deal with may live alone, in an adult-less household. Some of them have been taken in by Safina staff who head up a couple of homes for the boys in their care.

Safina provides a place where the children are tracked and registered carefully and their situations reviewed by a the staff team. The staff then endeavor to get the children into education and provide the books, shoes, school registration etc to help get the children (mainly boys) off the streets and into school, since education is a vital key to giving them a more promising future. Meticulous hand-written files are kept to record information on the individuals in Safina's care...

Standing with Safina Directors Andrea and Patrick, in front of the wall where the children's school shoes, books and school bags are kept for them in safety, so that they can pick them up each morning without the risk of having them stolen on the streets overnight. The empty pigeon holes means that many of the students were currently at school.

In the mornings, Safina runs a nursery school for the younger children in their care system. In the afternoons, when we visited, the children/ teenagers can come along freely for a short lesson and Bible study. Sitting in on the lesson yesterday, I felt acutely- and uncomfortably- aware of my own privileges in life and of the inequality which we see around us in the world. Being pregnant in such an environment, sitting amongst the boys, also made me so sad that not all children are born into a family willing or able to care for them. It makes the work of Safina all the more significant, that they reach out and work hard to help those who have had such a rough start to life.

The daily lesson:

After the lesson, the children are given a free meal -every day except Sundays. It may be the one meal a day that these young ones can count on -and it is thoroughly enjoyed!

The queue for food, where each young person is registered as they come in:

Laddis, the cook and his team, serve up the food:
Laddis cooks the food in the traditional Tanzanian way- outside, in enormous cooking pots on a fire, with ashes piled on top to keep the food warm:

The expense of running such a project is huge- most days, at least 70 children turn up for lunch, which consists of rice, meat, vegetables and fruit. The bill is over a million Tanzanian shillings a month just for the food (about £500) , but then there are schooling costs, the rent of Safina's building in town etc etc.... while other donations go towards shoes and clothes for the children who literally have nothing. It was a challenging afternoon to hear how Safina gets by- and also an inspiration to see what a difference the dedication of a small team can make to try to improve the lives of some of Dodoma's poorest residents.