Plan Tanzania: what we do

Plan Tanzania’s work covers 5 key areas, all of which are rooted in the rights of the child:

• Safe environment for children and youth
• Fair start in Early Childhood Care and development (ECCD)
• Healthy life
• Children and youth voice
• Household economic security (KUJIKIMU)

Plan started working in Tanzania in 1991. We have a presence in 5
regions; Dar Es Salaam, Coast, Ifakara (Morogoro), Geita and Mwanza. In addition, some of our programs are designed to have a national reach through advocacy, media and partnership.

Our longer term Country Goals is, Children and Youth are Empowered, Respected and Responsible.  Under this goal, Plan Country Programs are designed to correspond with the four pillars of the Convention on the Rights of the Child - CRC.

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Plan Tanzania

Plan has been working in Tanzania since 1991, helping poor children to access their rights to health, education, sanitation, livelihoods and protection.

We operate in 6 areas across Tanzania and work with 30,000 sponsored children, their families and their communities.

Currently, we are focusing on community-led total sanitation (CLTS), which inspires communities to stop open-air defecation because of its negative impact on health. So far we have introduced CLTS in over 60 villages and many of them have declared themselves ‘open defecation free’.

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My take on microfinance

All in all I really think that microfinance is one of the best ways for women to get out of poverty, because they can build up their own business on their own, they only loan the money, but at the end they end up with, for most of them, a good profit. Doing it in groups also helps a lot, because if one of the women has to pay a sudden medical bill or something like that the others in the group has agreed to pay for her if she cannot. It is also really helpful to teach them about savings and book keeping so that they can use their money better and so that they know what they are spending it on. But I think my one and a half months was too short a time to be there.

Friday afternoon

We would visit every women’s group once a week to see how they were doing, to collect their loan repayments and sometimes give them business training. The Friday afternoon group is called solidarity. We gave them book keeping training and then the week after we checked their books, most of them were surprisingly good. One person earns maybe 40,000 a day and another a couple of thousands, so there is a really big difference, like in most of the other groups. We did a business women with the chairwoman who sells tea spices. This group is the poorest one that we have given a loan and we therefore also moved more slowly forward in the amounts. One of the women sold stones and charcoal and her profit was less than what she had spent buying the supplies, but she didn’t realize it before we brought it up. We did post-loan interviews and then a little while later they got the next loan.

Friday morning

We would visit every women’s group once a week to see how they were doing, to collect their loan repayments and sometimes give them business training. The Friday morning group is called peace. We started out by giving this group a new loan and we talked about our concerns and things like that. We did a business visit with one of the women, she has cows for milk, beans and chickpeas. She is doing quite well, but she is supporting an entire family of children and grandchildren so most of the money goes to them. Sometimes they came late to the meetings and didn’t have any of what we had told them to prepare ready. Maybe it was lost in translation or maybe they simply forgot. Then we went to another business visit, a kerosene business, she goes to Kenya and buys it and then sells it here. It seemed she made quite a profit on it.

Wednesday

We would visit every women’s group once a week to see how they were doing, to collect their loan repayments and sometimes give them business training. The Wednesday group lived on the other side of town than the Tuesday groups. Only three out of around ten women showed up the first time we visited this group. They were all claiming sickness, but this happened quite often. It didn’t seem like they were all that serious about the loans since they didn’t even show up to the weekly meetings. Five women had their last payment for their second loan, only one of them showed up. We did a post-loan interview with her, it was nice to hear how it went for this woman with her loan and what she used it for. It seemed like it had been really helpful to her, all the training also seemed to have helped her. The next time we did the last four interviews; one of them bought a cow, a male one, that hasn’t brought her any income yet, so she used her other businesses to pay for the loan, but when she sells it she will get 900,000 tsh. Another sells beans in Nairobi, yet another has been sick so she didn’t really do all that much.

The last five women finished their loans some time later, only one showed up, her business was that she makes a nutritious porridge and she was making a lot of money on it, but she needs to expand her business as she was able to make 100 kg a month as it is, but there is a demand for 200 kg. later we did the last post-loan interviews and it is incredible how big the gap is between some of the women, one had 300 chickens that produce a lot of eggs for her to sell, so she turns over a big income, another who sells solar power and something else and also gets a big income, but then there was one who owns a shop, that has very little income. They have all gotten the same amount of loans, but they use it so differently.

Tuesday afternoon

We would visit every women’s group once a week to see how they were doing, to collect their loan repayments and sometimes give them business training. The Tuesday morning group lived far away from the center of town. The leader of the group had a really big garden with tons of different vegetables and things of that sort. She seemed to be really successful. Sometimes we would meet this group in a church made of concrete and we talked and discussed what kind of problems they had. We visited one of the women’s business, she has many things; animals, vegetables, fruits, chickens and a shop. In her shop she paid 40,000 for an employee a month, whom she also supplied with food worth 45,000 a month, her rent was 30,000 and for electricity she paid 5,000 a month. She told is that the income in her shop was 120,000 a month. So it didn’t really seem all that profitable.

Tuesday morning

We would visit every women’s group once a week to see how they were doing, to collect their loan repayments and sometimes give them business training. The Tuesday morning group was called love one another. We did savings training with this group and visited one of the women’s business. She was doing really well, much better than most of the other women and she doesn’t really need the third loan, but is our goal for the individual women to be financially independent or the entire group? This women can help the others if they need it. She was selling food for animals and wanted to start selling concrete. Another woman owned a fruit and vegetable stand, she is doing fine.  We also did forecasting and planning training and the chairwoman of the group, came up with the idea that they should all come with a business plan that we can look over and see what would be most profitable.

Monday

We would visit every women’s group once a week to see how they were doing, to collect their loan repayments and sometimes give them business training. The Monday group lived close to a river. They had been having a problem with one of the women in the group. She didn’t show up to the meetings we had with them, so she hadn’t been given any training. But just when we discussed her, she showed up, so the group decided to support her, but with the same loan amount as last time, they later changed their minds and said she could get a bigger loan. They wanted to finish their loan early, so that they could begin with a new one. Before they received a new loan we went over their loan application with them and listened to what they wanted to do with the money. There are only four women left in the group as the previous members were not good at paying on time and coming to the meetings.

                      One of the women had asked us to find a price for a scale, but then she changed her mind and said she wanted to buy sardines instead, this means that it sometimes were a bit difficult to be sure they invested in what they put in their applications. We visited the same woman’s shop and she had a lot of space left for stock, at one point a woman came in asking for soap, there wasn’t anything left, but a phone call and ten minutes later a guy comes by with a box full of soap. Most of the women seem to benefit a great deal from the loans.

Microfinance

Last year I volunteered on a microfinance project in Tanzania. I wanted to try and see for myself how it worked. There was six women’s groups. We would visit every women’s group once a week to see how they were doing, to collect their loan repayments and sometimes give them business training. Business training could be savings training, book keeping training, forecasting and planning training and so forth. Each women had a loan of 100,000, 200,000 or 300,000 Tanzanian shillings, they had a certain amount of weeks to pay the loan off without interest. For example with the 200,000 tsh loan they paid 12,500 tsh per week for 16 weeks. As this was a project build up by one supervisor and many interchanging volunteers it could sometimes be difficult to keep the momentum moving forward. But all of the women in the groups really seemed to have changed their lives for the better. Over the next month you will hear about the six different groups.

Supporting mothers, supporting children

Crayson, 12, lives in the Ifikara region of Tanzania and was born with physical disabilities. His father abandoned his mother Maryam during her pregnancy. She gave birth beside the road on the three hour walk to get to the nearest clinic. Maryam supports them financially by growing maize and vegetables, leaving her struggling to care full time for Crayson’s needs. As Crayson got to primary school age Maryam contacted the nearest school that could cater for disabled children, but found that the fees of nearly a million Shillings a year (£397) were far out of her reach. She tried the local schools, but they all refused Crayson on the grounds of his disability. As a result of a Plan initiative called the Children’s Platform, which allows children to realise their right to participation, Crayson has been able to go to school. Children’s Platform gives children the ability to have their opinions heard through various forms of media.

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The children of Sakina

All of the children.

Let me introduce you to the children from the day care/kindergarten that I volunteered in one month in Tanzania in the part of Arusha that is called Sakina. There were two Nasaras, the smallest one took to me instantly, and every time I walked somewhere she would follow. Azra has two sisters: the bigger Nasara and Najma. They always stayed late because their mother had left them, so their father had to take care of them by himself, but as he worked at a garage it was better to stay in the kindergarten than to go there. Doreen was quiet, but she always had a smile for you, especially when you needed one. Noreen was the beauty queen of the kindergarten. Every time I saw her she had a new hairstyle and that is saying much for kids with practically no hair. Tamali taught me to count to twenty in Kiswahili. Johnson was always wearing the same clothes. Most of the children wear a school uniform or half of it, but mostly they change it up a little. During three days he also wore the same holey socks. He hardly ever got in fights, he was one of the good boys. Jackson, like the rest of the boys, thought he was too old to play with girls. Angela was a quiet girl and she didn’t say very much. The others sometimes just called her angel. Julieth liked to sit by me, she always seemed like a princess. Joyline was one of the oldest children. Whenever we tried a new game, she was always the one who tried first. Daniel was always very serious and usually sat quietly playing. Bryan was one of the boys, but he was a bit smaller than most of the other boys his age so sometimes he had to fight a little harder. Ibrahim was one of the smaller kids, but I could never figure out his age, because he was so small, but so bright. Ibrahim had the biggest smile you could ever imagine, and he liked to smile all the time. Dereck was quite a bully, and would get that look in his eyes of resistance if you tried to interfere. Pruspa used to cry a lot, but when he smiled it would melt your heart. Cathbet always had an innocent smile ready and he was surprisingly good at drawing. David was one of the older boys, but he never used his age to bully anyone, he was always very sweet. Salma was best friends with Joyline. Joyline tried everything first, but Salma went right after her. Elizabeth was the oldest in the kindergarten. We called her Eliza and she was shy, but always ready to explore. She was supposed to start school in the fall, but they rejected her, even though they had said she would get in. Khadija, we once tried a game about trust, but there wasn’t a whole lot of trust and Khadija ended up walking into a wall. Gosperi was a quiet little girl who didn’t say anything. Simon was the youngest boy, he always wore a hat. He was quiet like Gosperi, but when he warmed up to you he was yours. Esther was a little bully. Gillian was clumsy and shy. Eunice had a lot of energy she didn’t know where to put, she always called me teacher and had an adorable smile. Andrew was usually called Biggie, he was a big bully with eyes that pretended innocence, but they never fooled me. His dad owned a big white car and he probably lived in a big house.  Betty always came to the kindergarten with Tamali, she was always really sweet. Najma and Nasara looked a lot alike and might have been twins, they are Azra’s sisters as well and they both loved to play. Oscar was the oldest boy and he usually stood on the sidelines. Joving smiled by pressing his lips into his mouth. William didn’t know any of the songs the children would sing, he cried easily and all the time until he got his way. Janeth was like Angela, but in a more smiling way and she always wore a scarf. Vanessa liked to repeat what you said to learn new words, she is HIV positive.

See it come true

Hi everyone,

Today I will be leaving for Aruha, Tanzania where I will be volunteering for three months starting of at a day care/orphanage for a month and then I will be doing some microfinance before moving on to Kenya where I am not exactly sure what I will be doing. I have always wanted to help in the developing field and I am looking so much forward to actually getting over their and doing it! And getting some experience before moving on to (hopefully) study International Development at a university. Though I have to tell you that it is extremely hard to apply for university during the summer, luckily I have a really cool brother who will help me while I'm away!

My blog is called seeitcometrue.blogspot.com, see it come true, it is taken from a quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson: "the invariable mark of a dream is to see it come true."

Hopefully we will see many more dreams than mine coming true these next five months, I can't wait!

And by the way, I have planned loads of blogposts on this blog as well, because of course my themes for each month has to continue so they will all come and at least until the end of August there will be a post everyday, and you are all welcome to read my own blog as well!

- Maria