It is almost a year since we last wrote to you to tell of the progress the Support Group has made working with the Anglican Sisters in Tanzania and Zambia.   As usual, trustees have visited East Africa at their own expense to advise and help. Mother Dorothy, the Mother Superior, has visited England this year after Easter.

 

The reason for her visit was the need to meet and experience exchange with other Anglican communities also in Derbyshire and Yorkshire and to help the Sisters in Tanzania in the education and improvement of the health of African women and children and in the standards of nutrition and skills of their families. 

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Water Drilling for Irrigation project in Masasi

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The Sisters last year had some test drilling done near their cow shed not far from heir vegetable gardens. 

Now they have carried out further work and drilled finding a plentiful supply of good quality water. 

This will help them to irrigate their garden and nearby paddy field, which should produce two harvests of rice twice a year. 

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This will be a great boost for CMM to have sufficient water as there have been very poor harvests this year, despite two plantings on the fields near Dar.

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Projects completed

 

Most exciting, thanks to generous donations, has been the opening in 2015 of the Hostel for 20 girls attending secondary schools in and around Masasi.  A Sister acts as Matron to supervise the girls to live and study in safe conditions and help them in learning domestic skills at the same time. You may recall from previous appeals that opportunities for secondary education for girls were few and those coming from outlying villages had to board in the town during the week. There was a high drop out rate and sometimes unwanted teenage pregnancies, at the same time as having to do long hours of domestic work in part-payment of rent, thus making school  homework and reading difficult. The design of the hostel allows for further expansion when funds are available. Some of the furnishings were made in the carpentry workshop, where Luke (we reported about him last year) is placed. The Sisters had taken him in as an orphan, as his blind grandmother could no longer look after him.  When we met him during our last visit, a confident young man stood before us wanting to help other orphans after his training as an apprentice. 

 

The Sisters are also constructing a Mother and Child Health building in the remote Health Centre at Sayuni (the foundations are being dug out in the picture). HIV testing equipment for the whole area costing £30,000, paid for by the government, has been installed, showing the trust it has in CMM.