9th August 2009 - Village of Hope

On Thursday we went to visit the “Village of Hope”. This is a place only a couple miles away as the crow flies, adjacent to St. Gaspar’s Conference Centre. It is run by the Precious Blood Community, Sr. Rosalia and Fr. Vincent (both Italians) and four Tanzanian Sisters who are also of this community. They have a lovely and large compound where they offer a range of services, most connected with people infected by HIV Aids. In the middle of the compound are six duplexes, so twelve living communities, where orphaned children who are also HIV positive, reside with a married couple who act as “parents” to these children. These living spaces were built to house about 10 children in each unit, but there are at present over 150 children in residence there. There’s a large kitchen which provides food for all the residents and there is housing for the Sisters in addition to medical services offered. These services include an outpatient clinic where local mothers can come with their children for medical care, a state of the art laboratory where testing for the HIV virus is done, and a unit where those who need hospitalization can be helped. We visited this unit and there were four mothers with their children in one ward, including one who had just given birth the previous evening. In another ward were three babies who had been brought recently, orphans, and they were so sick. The staff hopes to save them with good nutrition and the right drugs, and hopefully they will. There’s also a church and a nursery school for the children right there on the compound, and they’ve also built a residence that houses the volunteers that come frequently from Italy to help out in various projects.

Adjoining this compound is a primary school which has about 500 students. This school was begun for the children residing in the Village of Hope, but all the children who attend are not HIV positive. The school is open to others in the area and so the children mix freely all together. Those with families go home each afternoon, and the children from the Village go to their home as well. The primary school was begun seven years ago and so the children who started in Standard I at that time are now finishing Standard VII and are preparing to take the national examination given at the end of primary school.

And so there is furious building going on in order to have a secondary school ready for occupancy in January of next year. This will offer education to the children from the Village of Hope, both boys and girls, and they will also open it to girls from outside, and so the building includes dormitories for the girls, classrooms, kitchen and dining facilities, library, science labs, offices, etc. There were about 20 Italian men working on these buildings alongside the Tanzanian contractor who is doing the building and his crew, and the construction is very nice.

As soon as Sr. Rosalia and Fr. Vincent found out that I’m an English teacher, I was immediately offered a job. They are anxious that these youngsters who are beginning secondary school have a good foundation in English, and we also talked about offering classes to them as soon as they finish their Standard VII exam, so that they can manage their other lessons as well when they begin their secondary education. I’m really tempted and am thinking seriously about taking this on. For at least the first year there would also be time to do some tutoring of young girls, another dream of mine, so we’ll see. They would also love to have Connie as their Biology teacher, but are open to the other things she has to offer, like values education, seminars on various topics, etc. And as I said above, it’s only a relatively short distance from our house. It would take about 45 minutes by foot, and 5 minutes by car.

The little children who we saw are so adorable. They ran up to us and gave a hug and chatter away about what they’re doing. We visited the classroom of those of about four years old, and they were singing and drumming and having a good time. Because of the good care they get and the drugs that are now available to them they look so healthy. I just can’t imagine their lives without this intervention. What do you think about throwing my hat in with them???