Give Malnourished Students Nutritious Meals at School
Children need proper nutrition to stay healthy, grow up strong, and reach their full potential. Unfortunately, many around the world have no access to stable sources of food and suffer from malnutrition. YOU can help change this reality at St. Luke’s Primary School in Tanzania by donating today towards ensuring that their feeding program can serve students daily nutritious meals to fuel their bodies and minds!
St. Luke’s Primary School in the Archdiocese of Arusha is a remarkable place. The Spiritans at Endulen Catholic Mission run the school and teach 230 extremely vulnerable students including girls, deaf students, and orphans. Sadly, most of the children who attend this school suffer from malnutrition. The livestock in this area has died due to drought, which eliminates their essential food source. When most students begin school at St Luke’s, many of them need hospitalization due to undernourishment. Many have large bellies that stick out from under their school uniforms due to kwashiorkor, a form of malnutrition caused by a lack of protein. Seeing the alarming problem amongst the student body, the school implemented a feeding program that serves three nutritious meals a day to students so they can work toward properly earning a quality Catholic education.
YOU have the opportunity to serve these children and change their lives! Your support will help cover the food costs associated with giving nourishing meals to the students every day. In doing so, they will be able to learn more about God and pursue a relationship with Him in a healthy learning environment.
While the children and their families hold onto their Maasai cultural traditions, they embrace the Catholic faith as it uplifts them from material and spiritual poverty. St. Luke’s baptizes 30 children into the Catholic faith each year. Raising $11,000 for St. Luke’s Primary School will transform many underprivileged children’s futures. Together, we have the opportunity to help feed students so they may stay in school, learn, and achieve brighter futures.
Your gift in any amount can make a difference,
Donate Now!
END OF MAY CAMPAIGN
Catholic Relief Efforts in Tanzania
Located in Eastern Africa, Tanzania is the region’s most populated country. It borders the Indian Ocean and is situated between Kenya and Mozambique. Two-thirds of Tanzania’s population is under 25. About 61% of the population is Christian. In terms of per capita income, Tanzania is one the world’s poorest countries. The economy depends on agriculture, leaving Tanzanians particularly vulnerable to drought and other weather-related maladies. For decades, Tanzania was the largest refugee-hosting country in Africa, primarily hosting Burundian refugees, until repatriation efforts began in Burundi.
St Joseph Parish Kindergarten
Their Story
Where: Masasi,TANZANIA
Who: St Joseph Parish Kindergarten (87 students), and the surrounding community (168 families)
What: Clean drinking water project and School renovations
When: 2023
The Impact: The importance of clean water cannot be overstated. Without a permanent water source, the families of St Joseph Parish in Tanzania have suffered greatly from drought seasons and waterborne illnesses.
Now, the Mtwara Diocese in Tanzania humbly asks for your support in building a permanent clean-water source to drastically improve the health, safety, and quality of life for the St Joseph Parish, Kindergarten, and surrounding community. Your support will also fund the renovation of the dilapidated Kindergarten building, providing a safe infrastructure and bathrooms for the children.
Borehole and renovation of the building!
March 2023
BEFORE
AFTER
Madam Rosemary Albert.- Teacher
A kindergarten without clean drinking water and sanitization for children is a disaster. We have been living is a disastrous environment for years. We would like to thank Catholic World Mission for helping to renovate our buildings and provide us with clean water as fundamental human rights. We went missing this basic need of every human for years. We are now in good environment to teach our children how to bathe and wash their contaminate hands from unclean surface. Through this renovation and drilled well, rainwater harvesting systems, we can protect the health of our children and teach comfortably. Thank you so much Catholic World Mission.
Denis Donatus Mogella.- Secretary of St. Joseph Parish
The best contribution that a person can offer to human being is education. It is a tool used to attack poverty at the root level, one is enabled to manage his/her environment that a person lives and it allows individuals to realize their God-given potential to promote their lives and communities. In lifting up the impoverished children out of educational poverty, we spread and saw seeds of hope and provide opportunity away from the negativity of crimes acts. We would like to thank Catholic World Mission for noticing that and attempting to help in the renovation and provision of water to our children at St Joseph Kindergarten Newala in the diocese of Mtwara Tanzania.
Emmanuel Mponda.- Teacher
We are so much grateful for the blessing we have received to be able to renovate and have clean water in place. The environment for children looks very beautiful and clean. Water system helps both the kindergarten and their parents too. We call to the attention of everyone to take care of water system.
Thank you very much CWM for helping our children. Â
Fadhili Swalehe Shabani
On behalf of the entire community of the parents whose children study here, I would like to appreciate the great job done to improve kindergarten and its environment. we have very nice place for our children to study, our children will study happily and benefit good water, it’s my call to everyone to maintain it. We thank all benefactors who have made this happen.
Holy Ghost Fathers Vocational Training Center
Their Story
Founded in 1703, the Holy Ghost Fathers (known as Spiritans) work in education, parishes, refugee camps, and several other areas.
Holy Ghost Vocational Training Center was established in 1994 in Tengeru, Arusha, Tanzania. Its original mission was to alleviate poverty by teaching basic carpentry skills. In learning a trade, local residents could find jobs, earn wages, and improve their lives.
At its inception in 1994, the VTC started with 60 male students. Today, it now has 250 students, male and female, who are learning skills in a variety of trades:
- Carpentry
- Motor Vehicle Mechanics
- Metal Fabrication
- Electrical Installation
- Masonry and Brick Laying
- Secretarial and Commercial Industries
- Tailoring
- Information Computing Technology
After graduating and passing their boards, most students are able to start their own businesses and help provide for their families!
The mainstay of the Holy Ghost Vocational Training Center is its small farm. In good years, enough food grows to feed the whole school community–students, teachers, and staff. A normal harvest typically includes 4,220 kgs (9,303 lbs) of maize (corn) and 1,234 kgs (2,720 lbs)Â of bananas, among other crops.
Drought has crippled Tanzania. There is simply not enough food. Even cows are dying.
In 2017, the VTC farm produced only 1,146 pounds of corn and 361 pounds of bananas, a mere fraction of normal production. This is simply not enough to feed all the students, teachers, and staff at the Arusha campus.
78% of people in Tanzania’s rural and urban areas have experienced food shortage.
There is constant worry and fear throughout the country, and it is not uncommon for a family member to go without food for a whole day. The price of food has skyrocketed, making food unaffordable for poor families to buy food when their own crops fail.
Father Emmanuel Kway, CSSp., was ordained in 2014. His first appointment was in South Africa. Now in his fifth year of priesthood, Fr. Emmanuel has been at the Holy Spirit Vocational Center since 2017.
As a child, Fr. Emmanuel lived near a major seminary. One year, near the feast of Corpus Christi, he saw a group of seminarians dressed in their white cassocks for the Eucharistic procession. He says, “I was very much attracted with that and I said to myself, ‘I want to be like that!’”
Over the years, with much discernment and prayer, and the special intercession of St. Therese of Lisieux, Fr. Emmanuel was ordained on May 8, 2014. Fr. Emmy tells us, “Now I am in my fifth year as a priest, serving GOD in His vineyard happily. I see the hand of GOD in my life, since I have never regretted what I am today, especially with the new mission of serving GOD with youth.”
Pray for Fr. Emmanuel and the young people he shepherds at the Holy Spirit Vocational Training Center!
Most students at Holy Ghost Vocational Training Center are orphans or come from very poor families. For those families who can afford it, tuition is Tsh. 750,000 ($394.82 USD). However, only about 45% of the students can afford tuition. The majority of students depend completely on scholarships to attend classes.
The Center has some income from its carpentry and metal works workshops. The goods sold pay for things like electricity, water, and medication when a student gets sick.
Francis K.
Student Spotlight
Francis is a student at Holy Spirit Vocational Training Center. At a young age, he and his sister were orphaned. Soon after, Francis’s sister also died, leaving him truly alone. Thankfully, his parish priest knew of the VTC in Arusha and was able to connect Francis with the Spiritans. Today, Francis is in his third year of studies in masonry and brick-laying.
Francis is extremely grateful for the VTC and the opportunities he has there, especially for growth in all areas of his life–spiritually, morally, physically, and professionally. He’s excited for his future, and for the chance to start his own business one day!
Food for the Vocational Training Center has arrive!
March 2020
