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ARF partnerships provide water, sanitation and financial freedom
  
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By Sesame Campbell
EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the second story in a series of stories from Chatham Courier reporter Sesame Campbell, who traveled to Tanzania in Africa.
MKURANGA DISTRICT, Tanzania — Multiple projects are making the difference in the lives of thousands of residents of the Mkuranga District, all because of an exchange between two women on a dirt road about 40 miles outside of Dar Es Salaam.
“I was driving in village Mwarusembe when I saw this lady squatting on the side of the road taking water from a small hole in the ground,” recalled African Reflections Foundation Founder Maria Pool. “Her name is Maua, which means ‘flowers’ in Swahili. When I stopped the car and asked her what the water situation was, she told me they have no water at all; they have to dig holes for rainwater.”
Maua told her that if there is no rain, women walk as far as 10 miles to get water from a river. At times they have been assaulted and raped by men on the way to find water for their families. Some of their children have been attacked and killed by wild animals. Pool realized then that she had to find a way to build wells for the people of the Mkuranga district.
Although Pool is a highly successful business woman, with several profitable companies in the tourism and media industries, she has always tried to help those less fortunate than herself. But several years ago, during a trip from Tanzania to Albany, Pool had a conversation with her friend Sajida Mamdani. The conversation altered the course of her life.
“The story really starts with [Mamdani],” Pool said. “She wanted to do something to help the people back in Africa. Having lived in Tanzania for so many years, I wanted to do something too. That was the birth of ARF. We decided that we would do whatever we could to help.”
Pool and Mamdani began by focusing on the crafts that were coming out of the villages. “The only thing African people have are their arts and crafts,” she said. “We thought we would take some crafts with us to the U.S., sell them and inject profits back into Tanzania to help build wells in their communities.”
With some help from the U.S. government through duty-free trade, the women brought crafts and sold them at a kiosk in Albany. ARF blossomed from there. Pool met another woman who had success distributing irrigation kits in Malawi. She bought a few hundred kits, brought them to Tanzania and drove to Mkuranga District.
Although lush and fertile, Mkuranga is devastatingly poor. With no infrastructure for water, the district’s residents lack sanitation, are in poor health and live in conditions that are shocking. It was on her drive through Mkuranga that Pool met Maua, who became her initial contact person.
“I asked her if there were projects in the village that women would be willing to work on,” Pool said. “She said if I would provide them with a well, they would provide the land and form a group of women to start farming.”
Pool told her to give her a week and she would come back. After a week, she returned as promised and found that a group of 15 women had already assembled with land ready. Pool contracted surveyors to see whether or not the villagers had enough water to begin farming. They found the water table and within two weeks, construction began on the well. The group was officially registered with the local government and the women’s farming project began.
Back in the United States, Pool continued her campaign to get support for the villagers. She spoke with anyone who would listen, traveling back and forth from Tanzania to the United States, bringing crafts, while her partner Mamdani ran the business. She invested much of her own money, but the generosity of people in the United States who heard her stories moved and inspired her to keep going.
Two years ago, she met Gail Thorpe, a member of Team Rafiki’s core team, who contacted Pool because word had gotten out about the work ARF was doing.
“Gail told me about a group of people who had been working in Zimbabwe, but the political situation had gotten worse so they could not return,” Pool said. “Since they were committed to working to help in Africa, they joined ARF to do work in Tanzania. I met with the core team, who called themselves Team Rafiki, because Rafiki means ‘friend’ in Swahili.”
According to Thorpe, the initial partnership consisted of approximately 12 members. This year, that number grew to 17.
“My first impression of Maria was that she was a smart business woman, very hard working, and very genuine,” Thorpe said. “She had tears running down her face when she spoke with us about the women she was working with. We saw that she was committed to changing lives one project at a time.”
As women are the heads of most African households, entrepreneurial projects can help women get their families the care and support needed. With the women’s farming project, women have been able to invest more into their children and communities.
At the women’s farming group, women were given gardening tools, wheel barrels and bicycles to do their gardening and sell their products. Profits from their farming are put into a local bank and reinvested into the project. And it is paying off. The project has incorporated a successful mushroom business. “We visited it last year,” Thorpe said. “It was amazing.”
The villagers now have a mill project in the same village where the mushroom crops are located. Because the women demonstrated responsibility and capability with the farming project, it was decided that a mill would reduce travel time and expenses, as well as generate additional revenue for the women.
In a separate project, women were given grinders used for leaves from a Moranga tree. With 19 essential vitamins and nutrients, the tree grows to full-size in a year and is ready to harvest. Team member Joe Fanton gave women classes on how to take the grinder apart, clean it and how to maintain it.
“They are hand machines with a crank,” Fanton said. “A tiny auger moves the leaves through the grinder that makes a powder finer than pepper. The dust can be used in many ways. In my experience the women were very eager to learn about the grinder and weren’t at all apprehensive about taking it apart and putting it back together.”
Over the course of the last year and a half, TR members have collected supplies around the requests of villagers. Kisele was the first village ARF/TR decided to focus their efforts on. TR members had worked hard during the year to raise money and collect supplies for the projects, which included an indoor clinic, nursery school and a women’s workshop.
The Sanitation Pad project was another project requested by the village women. Because there is little available material in the village, girls use whatever they can during their menstrual cycles, including newspaper and plastic. Often school is missed during menstruation and sanitation conditions that were already difficult become even worse.
“The pad project has been a huge success,” Thorpe said. “We gave each woman patterns and cotton to make the pads. It’s made a big difference. Since the pad project began, school attendance has gone up. The project has given women more flexibility when working and is more sanitary for everyone in the village.”
Even though well-meaning companies have donated sanitary napkins, Pool explained that there is a disposable issue in the rural communities. “People don’t have places where they can throw these things away,” Pool said. “Disposable napkins are bad for the environment and for the health and well-being of villagers. They have no disposable system to get rid of pads, which take a long time to break down.”
Unlike some organizations that use a percentage of donations for administrative and travel costs, contributions made to ARF and TR go directly to the villagers. Team members pay for their own travel and lodging expenses and funding comes from direct donations and supplies. The team members bring crafts from Africa for the fundraisers. They mark up the price and the profits are returned to the villagers.
Fenton, who lives in Batavia, recently had a large pork dinner fundraiser at his home and raised several thousand dollars. Other members have had tag sales, bake sales and craft tables. The Savoy in Saratoga has a yearly dance that also serves as a fundraiser for a worthy cause. This year, the cause was ARF/TR.
A nursing home closed down last year and team members saw their supplies listed on Craig’s List. John Tamoshumas collected wheelchairs, walkers, canes, two operating tables and medical supplies, such as ointments, toothpaste and vitamins. Thorpe said that it’s a combination of a lot of people doing small things that really adds up.
Last year, the village of Kisele had an outdoor clinic, but the funds and supplies and building that ARF/TR constructed has turned into an indoor clinic that offers mostly first aid.
“None of us are doctors,” Thorpe said. “The strongest things we have are painkillers like Tylenol. We treat a lot of things like fungal infections, give body rubs with Ben Gay, treat wounds and have had a number of fevers and eye problems with a lot of the babies.”
Pool funded the doctor and the medicine. A small service fee is paid, which serves both as an incentive and provides a steady stream of revenue for the clinic.
“This year, when we went back, the villagers already had the clinic and the nursery school up and running,” Thorpe said. “The women told us they needed a place to put their babies while they worked and since then, the women’s workshop has three manual sewing machines and for the first time, there are latrines. It all started with water.”
The success at Kisele has spread to surrounding villages, where plans are under way for a similar facility in Kiziko.
Volunteers have unanimously said they find the work meaningful. “These people have very little, but one thing they have is community and family, which sustains them,” Thorpe said. “I feel if there is something else we can bring them — education, hope — then we can make a difference. The women we’ve talked with want the same things we want. They want their kids to be healthy; have a chance to go to school. I have an interest in the orphans because I was orphaned at 8 years old and I know that if you can give a little extra help, it makes such a difference.”
For more information, visit ARF’s Web site at www.africanreflectionsfoundation.org.
MKURANGA DISTRICT, Tanzania — Multiple projects are making the difference in the lives of thousands of residents of the Mkuranga District, all because of an exchange between two women on a dirt road about 40 miles outside of Dar Es Salaam.
“I was driving in village Mwarusembe when I saw this lady squatting on the side of the road taking water from a small hole in the ground,” recalled African Reflections Foundation Founder Maria Pool. “Her name is Maua, which means ‘flowers’ in Swahili. When I stopped the car and asked her what the water situation was, she told me they have no water at all; they have to dig holes for rainwater.”
Maua told her that if there is no rain, women walk as far as 10 miles to get water from a river. At times they have been assaulted and raped by men on the way to find water for their families. Some of their children have been attacked and killed by wild animals. Pool realized then that she had to find a way to build wells for the people of the Mkuranga district.
Although Pool is a highly successful business woman, with several profitable companies in the tourism and media industries, she has always tried to help those less fortunate than herself. But several years ago, during a trip from Tanzania to Albany, Pool had a conversation with her friend Sajida Mamdani. The conversation altered the course of her life.
“The story really starts with [Mamdani],” Pool said. “She wanted to do something to help the people back in Africa. Having lived in Tanzania for so many years, I wanted to do something too. That was the birth of ARF. We decided that we would do whatever we could to help.”
Pool and Mamdani began by focusing on the crafts that were coming out of the villages. “The only thing African people have are their arts and crafts,” she said. “We thought we would take some crafts with us to the U.S., sell them and inject profits back into Tanzania to help build wells in their communities.”
With some help from the U.S. government through duty-free trade, the women brought crafts and sold them at a kiosk in Albany. ARF blossomed from there. Pool met another woman who had success distributing irrigation kits in Malawi. She bought a few hundred kits, brought them to Tanzania and drove to Mkuranga District.
Although lush and fertile, Mkuranga is devastatingly poor. With no infrastructure for water, the district’s residents lack sanitation, are in poor health and live in conditions that are shocking. It was on her drive through Mkuranga that Pool met Maua, who became her initial contact person.
“I asked her if there were projects in the village that women would be willing to work on,” Pool said. “She said if I would provide them with a well, they would provide the land and form a group of women to start farming.”
Pool told her to give her a week and she would come back. After a week, she returned as promised and found that a group of 15 women had already assembled with land ready. Pool contracted surveyors to see whether or not the villagers had enough water to begin farming. They found the water table and within two weeks, construction began on the well. The group was officially registered with the local government and the women’s farming project began.
Back in the United States, Pool continued her campaign to get support for the villagers. She spoke with anyone who would listen, traveling back and forth from Tanzania to the United States, bringing crafts, while her partner Mamdani ran the business. She invested much of her own money, but the generosity of people in the United States who heard her stories moved and inspired her to keep going.
Two years ago, she met Gail Thorpe, a member of Team Rafiki’s core team, who contacted Pool because word had gotten out about the work ARF was doing.
“Gail told me about a group of people who had been working in Zimbabwe, but the political situation had gotten worse so they could not return,” Pool said. “Since they were committed to working to help in Africa, they joined ARF to do work in Tanzania. I met with the core team, who called themselves Team Rafiki, because Rafiki means ‘friend’ in Swahili.”
According to Thorpe, the initial partnership consisted of approximately 12 members. This year, that number grew to 17.
“My first impression of Maria was that she was a smart business woman, very hard working, and very genuine,” Thorpe said. “She had tears running down her face when she spoke with us about the women she was working with. We saw that she was committed to changing lives one project at a time.”
As women are the heads of most African households, entrepreneurial projects can help women get their families the care and support needed. With the women’s farming project, women have been able to invest more into their children and communities.
At the women’s farming group, women were given gardening tools, wheel barrels and bicycles to do their gardening and sell their products. Profits from their farming are put into a local bank and reinvested into the project. And it is paying off. The project has incorporated a successful mushroom business. “We visited it last year,” Thorpe said. “It was amazing.”
The villagers now have a mill project in the same village where the mushroom crops are located. Because the women demonstrated responsibility and capability with the farming project, it was decided that a mill would reduce travel time and expenses, as well as generate additional revenue for the women.
In a separate project, women were given grinders used for leaves from a Moranga tree. With 19 essential vitamins and nutrients, the tree grows to full-size in a year and is ready to harvest. Team member Joe Fanton gave women classes on how to take the grinder apart, clean it and how to maintain it.
“They are hand machines with a crank,” Fanton said. “A tiny auger moves the leaves through the grinder that makes a powder finer than pepper. The dust can be used in many ways. In my experience the women were very eager to learn about the grinder and weren’t at all apprehensive about taking it apart and putting it back together.”
Over the course of the last year and a half, TR members have collected supplies around the requests of villagers. Kisele was the first village ARF/TR decided to focus their efforts on. TR members had worked hard during the year to raise money and collect supplies for the projects, which included an indoor clinic, nursery school and a women’s workshop.
The Sanitation Pad project was another project requested by the village women. Because there is little available material in the village, girls use whatever they can during their menstrual cycles, including newspaper and plastic. Often school is missed during menstruation and sanitation conditions that were already difficult become even worse.
“The pad project has been a huge success,” Thorpe said. “We gave each woman patterns and cotton to make the pads. It’s made a big difference. Since the pad project began, school attendance has gone up. The project has given women more flexibility when working and is more sanitary for everyone in the village.”
Even though well-meaning companies have donated sanitary napkins, Pool explained that there is a disposable issue in the rural communities. “People don’t have places where they can throw these things away,” Pool said. “Disposable napkins are bad for the environment and for the health and well-being of villagers. They have no disposable system to get rid of pads, which take a long time to break down.”
Unlike some organizations that use a percentage of donations for administrative and travel costs, contributions made to ARF and TR go directly to the villagers. Team members pay for their own travel and lodging expenses and funding comes from direct donations and supplies. The team members bring crafts from Africa for the fundraisers. They mark up the price and the profits are returned to the villagers.
Fenton, who lives in Batavia, recently had a large pork dinner fundraiser at his home and raised several thousand dollars. Other members have had tag sales, bake sales and craft tables. The Savoy in Saratoga has a yearly dance that also serves as a fundraiser for a worthy cause. This year, the cause was ARF/TR.
A nursing home closed down last year and team members saw their supplies listed on Craig’s List. John Tamoshumas collected wheelchairs, walkers, canes, two operating tables and medical supplies, such as ointments, toothpaste and vitamins. Thorpe said that it’s a combination of a lot of people doing small things that really adds up.
Last year, the village of Kisele had an outdoor clinic, but the funds and supplies and building that ARF/TR constructed has turned into an indoor clinic that offers mostly first aid.
“None of us are doctors,” Thorpe said. “The strongest things we have are painkillers like Tylenol. We treat a lot of things like fungal infections, give body rubs with Ben Gay, treat wounds and have had a number of fevers and eye problems with a lot of the babies.”
Pool funded the doctor and the medicine. A small service fee is paid, which serves both as an incentive and provides a steady stream of revenue for the clinic.
“This year, when we went back, the villagers already had the clinic and the nursery school up and running,” Thorpe said. “The women told us they needed a place to put their babies while they worked and since then, the women’s workshop has three manual sewing machines and for the first time, there are latrines. It all started with water.”
The success at Kisele has spread to surrounding villages, where plans are under way for a similar facility in Kiziko.
Volunteers have unanimously said they find the work meaningful. “These people have very little, but one thing they have is community and family, which sustains them,” Thorpe said. “I feel if there is something else we can bring them — education, hope — then we can make a difference. The women we’ve talked with want the same things we want. They want their kids to be healthy; have a chance to go to school. I have an interest in the orphans because I was orphaned at 8 years old and I know that if you can give a little extra help, it makes such a difference.”
For more information, visit ARF’s Web site at www.africanreflectionsfoundation.org.
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