Happy Halloween! - and a hello from the board

We hope that following our Halloween blog last week there are a few people who are getting ready to do a bit of trick or treating - focusing mainly on the treating. It would be great if people could take a small container out with them and use their trick or treating as an opportunity to raise some money for a good cause (and if anyone is lacking a good cause to be inspired by, The Small Things is very happy to step into the gap!)

However, as Tanzanians don't do Halloween (why would they - it's not exactly an African tradition!), we unfortunately don't have any Halloween celebration pictures for you. I believe Bekka, Riz and Simoni and Zawadi are heading off to a special Halloween party in Arusha; as Bekka said, if they started trick or treating in Nkoaranga no one would have a clue what they were doing!
Just for good measure, here is a fabulous picture of Vicky to brighten up everybody's Halloween:

 

 

 

 

 

Meet the Board

Since our Facebook presence has improved quite significantly over the last couple of months, there's probably a few of you out there that don't know the faces behind The Small Things. What with a new website as well, we thought it was time to introduce ourselves! For those of you who have been on board since the beginning and already know us all we apologise, but you never know, you might learn something new about some of the board members.

These small bios of each of the board members are available on the 'Meet the Team' tab of the website, but we're highlighting them here because we think it's important to show the people behind the organisation. We're a small charity; for all our board members the committment to Nkoaranga orphanage is based on personal experience and relationship with the children and mamas. We hope that the personal touch comes through in our work.
Here's a bit about the people who make up The Small Things:

Bekka Ross Russell   

Bekka is the founder and on-the-ground director of The Small Things. She graduated from Tufts University and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in 2010, and spent her first 8 months in Tanzania before beginning a Masters degree in International Development at the London School of Economics. She is currently working full-time on the ground, running the day-to-day operations of the NGO. She lives in Nkoaranga with her husband Riz, and their currently-being-adopted children Saimoni and Zawadi, both former Nkoaranga orphanage kids. She is the daughter of board members David Ross Russell, and Dorothy Goldberg.

Mama Pendo   

Martha Ayo – AKA Mama Pendo (literally Mama Love) – is the head mama of Nkoaranga orphanage, and has been for over 25 years. Starting with just a few rooms next to the hospital mortuary in the eighties, the orphanage has evolved under her leadership and dedication to the loving, safe, and healthy environment it is today. She is loved by all the kids, and respected by everybody in the community. She has detailed knowledge of every single child’s story, which is remarkable considering how many children have passed through her care. She is the heart and soul of the orphanage, and it would not be the place it is today without her.

Bethan Crisp  

Bethan Crisp is currently an undergraduate student of Anthropology at Brunel University in West London. She has A-Levels in Law, Sociology, English Language and Literature. When she finished college, and before returning to study at Brunel Bethan travelled to Tanzania where she spent ten months volunteering.

In 2012 as part of her Anthropology course Bethan spent six months living in an indigenous Quichua community in the Ecuadorian Amazon. She conducted fieldwork on the topics of Quichua beliefs in shamanism and witchcraft; and the effects that oil companiescan have on natural medicine.She also had the opportunity to spend time exploring the general aspect and meaning of ‘work’ for the community she lived in.

Alongside her degree, Bethan is an Anthropology mentor for new students and plays an active part in the Anthropology Society; as well as providing support as a Link Up buddy for students with disabilities at Brunel. Her work for The Small Things finds her involved within the Communications and Volunteer Committees.

David Ross Russell   

David Russell was born in England and completed his medical training there before moving to the US with his wife Dorothy and daughter Bekka who was 20 months old at the time. They also have a son Adam who is 22.

David is the proud father of the founder of The Small Things, and the treasurer for the organization. In 2011 David was lucky enough to spend two weeks at Nkoaranga Orphanage; and will be returning for a month in January 2014.

He is a Family Practitioner in Connecticut, USA with an interest in Hospice and Palliative medicine.Currently David and Dorothy live on the Connecticut shoreline near New Haven. However, it is a long way geographically and psychologically from Mount Meru; but their hearts are at least partially there with their Tanzanian family - Bekka, Riz, Saimone and Zawadi.

Dorothy Goldberg   

Dorothy Goldberg is the secretary of The Small Things Board of Directors, chair of the Strategic Planning Committee; and one of the organization’s founding members. A resident of Connecticut, USA she is an ordained Cantor and serves as a congregational Cantor as well as a Pastoral Counselor for VNA Healthcare Hospice of Central Connecticut.

After earning a BA at Bryn Mawr College and an MA in Journalism and Public Affairs at The American University in Washington, DC, she moved to England. During her time in England she completed a postgraduate diploma (Dip. Music) in Vocal Music and Performance Skills at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London. After returning to the USA, Cantor Goldberg worked in the public relations field before attending seminary at the Academy for Jewish Religion (AJR) in New York City. She was ordained as a Cantor in 2005 and was chair of AJR's Board of Trustees for four years.

Emma Shaw   

Emma Shaw is a third year undergraduate psychology student at the University of St Andrews in Scotland. Currently she isstudying on an exchange program at Queens' University in Canada. She attended Beaconhurst School until 2010, and upon graduation took a gap-year before beginning university. During this time she did volunteer work in Tanzania for four months, teaching English at primary and secondary school level; and doing care-work at Nkoaranga Orphanage. Emma found herself enjoying all areas of her volunteer work. Upon her return home she became a board member of The Small Things.

Kristina Alexander   

Kristina Alexander is a full-time undergraduate student at the University of Victoria working towards her Bachelorof Arts Degree in Psychology. Her long-term goal is to complete a Masters program and a PHd specializing in Child Development and Cultural Psychology. In April 2013 she received her Associate of Arts Degree in Psychology from Camosun College.

Since she was a little girl she has always had a deep love and draw for Africa, which found her following her dream in 2010 and traveling to Tanzaniafor three months. While she was there she lived with a local family, met and fell in love with theculture, Mamas and children at Nkoraranga Orphanage. After she returned home, she quickly began to plan her trip back; and she returned for 7 weeks in the spring 2012.Having a deep passion to better the lives of children she is on the Child Welfare, Fundraising and Strategic Planning Committeewith The Small Things.

She currently resides in beautiful Victoria, BC, where she enjoys spending any extra time she has traveling and socializing with her friends and family.

Marie Korfits  

Marie Korfits is a third year undergraduate Psychology student at Aarhus University in Denmark. As part of her undergraduate program she was given the opportunity to complete two courses at the University of California in San Diego.

Marie volunteered at Nkoaranga Orphanage in 2010 for three months and went back for another trip in 2012. This time she took her mother; who just like Marie quickly came to love the children. Alongside her studies Marie works as an assistant in an Applied Behavior Analysis program for children diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder. She finds continual joy andinterest working with children.

Megan Williams   

Megan Williams is a third year undergraduate studying Politics and International Relations at the University of Cambridge in England.

She first travelled to Tanzania on a gap year and spent five months working with the children at Nkoaranga Orphanage and a primary school nearby. She was involved in the initial founding of The Small Things, which enabled her to return to Nkoaranga in January 2013 to renew connections with the orphanage. Megan loves being involved with The Small Things because it means that she can continue to be a positive force in the children's lives; and firmly believes that the time she spent with them on her gap year was more than just a one-off experience. Megan currently resides in Lancashire, in the north west of England.

Patty Harris   

Patty Harris is an APRN in private practice in Connecticut, working with individuals and families in a counseling environment. She also works with families who have chronic and terminal illnesses.

She has spent time in Tanzania and at Nkoaranga Orphanage in the summer of 2012. While there, Patty fell in love with the children and saw first-hand the dedication and care of all the staff and volunteers. She continues to be excited about working with the board and being a part of this meaningful experience.

Committee Members

 We also have some amazing and very committed members of our smaller committees that we set up to focus on different aspects of the charity's work. We'd like to thank them for everything they do on:

• The Fundraising Committee
• The Child Welfare Committee
• The Communications Committee
• The Strategic Planning Committee

We're always interested in hearing from new people who might want to be involved. If you might like to help out on one of our committees, get in touch - we're not too scary!

Happy Halloween everyone!

Charitable trick-or-treating this Halloween!

With only a week to go, why not treat rather than trick this Halloween?!

As we are sure you all know, Halloweeeeeen is fast approaching! Whether you have kids who are getting excited, or you yourself are getting ready to don your costume and head out trick-or-treating (like me!), we at The Small Things have decided that this year we will do trick-or-treating a bit differently...and we thought that you might like to join us!

Angel with her princess tiara, with  Dada Faraja

Rather than just asking for candy, take a small bucket (or pumpkin-minus-candle) around with you and also ask for a small 'treat' towards The Small Things.  Even if each house just give you £/$1 it would be £/$1 which would otherwise not have been raised, and every penny makes a difference to the fantastic children who, as you can see from the pictures, also love dressing up!

Face painting!

Whilst 'treating' is an absolutely fantastic way to support The Small Things (or another charity!) this Halloween, if you are looking to go a step further, consider planning a volunteering adventure!  Travelling to Tanzania to volunteer at Nkoaranga Orphanage may initially seem even more scary than ghouls and monsters(!), but it is actually the most rewarding experience you'll ever have. The kids are amazing and will make you never want to leave, even though they can be little monsters sometimes!

To learn more about volunteer life on a day-to-day basis and the opportunities that are out there for you, click here to visit our volunteer page and to download the volunteering guide.

...and of course, there are many other ways to support The Small Things and these beautiful children and Mamas, so if none of these options quite fits your preferred method of 'treating', check out our website for other ideas!

Here is one of our past volunteers, Sarah, with four beautiful princesses!  

Whatever you choose, THANK YOU and we hope that your Halloween is truly spook-tacular!

Outreach Program - Meet Fanueli

The Small Things have been doing outreach in various forms for a few years now, including the micro grants project and the work with Daniel Meshack, to name a couple. After many discussions, we have agreed that we would love to do outreach without compromising our other commitments. So, we have decided to set up an emergency fund which will cover the first 2 months of outreach for any children in crisis, while we seek sponsors for them. 

We get a lot of requests on the ground in Tanzania but unfortunately, as much as we would love to, it is difficult to accept them all, especially if the circumstances don't directly fit with our stated mission. However, sometimes there are situations that are much tougher, like this one. Meet Fanueli.

Fanueli

Fanueli is a three and a half year old child who has a medical condition that leaves him with no teeth, very little hair, and deformed ears. His mother was 16 when she got pregnant. Her own father had died when she was a baby so she was living with her mother, Fanueli's grandmother (since she had to drop out of school when she got pregnant). Two weeks ago, the grandmother also passed away. Now Fanueli and his 20 year old mother are staying with a neighbor. Teacher Emerte from the orphanage spoke to Bekka about Fanueli as she lives very close. Originally, they came to ask for Fanueli to be admitted to the orphanage, but they clearly love him and would prefer to keep him at home. This is a component that, when the circumstances are right, we prefer and feel it much more of sustainable solution to keep a child in their home rather than to pay for them to reside in an orphanage for the rest of their lives.

Through our outreach program, we hope to get Fanueli attending the pre-school 5 days a week and receiving supplemental food assistance as long as we can get a sponsor within 2 months. We also hope for an eventual goal where we can get his mother training and back to work, by helping out with the babies and cleaning at the orphanage as payment, plus monthly food packets. He will only need $50 a month, since pre-school is free. 

Sweet Fanueli

We think he has ectodermal dysplasia or something similar, since he has no hair or teeth, but he has hit all his milestones on time, is a smart and coordinated kid, and seems to have a normal immune system - so it appears the issues are just cosmetic. However, we would love to be connected with anyone who might be able to help him - a dentist, a pediatric developmental specialist, a dermatologist, family members of someone with a similar condition, anyone! That's really the biggest thing we are hoping to achieve through the publicity, is an idea of what to do next to make his life easier as a person with visible differences in a country where that is very difficult. We also want to ensure that there aren't any additional medical concerns linked to his condition, and what to be on the lookout for.

Please get in touch with us if you can contribute any information about this condition. Any further insights into the possible future of Fanueli and what we may be able to do to help him would be extremely invaluable. If you would like to make a donation towards our outreach goals for Fanueli and his mother, please click the link below. Your support would be greatly appreciated as we try and establish our aim to help other children outside of the orphanage.

Thank you!

     

                                                           

Some new baby kukus!

This week we have an update on the orphanage's chicken situation. That might not sound especially important to the uninitiated, but developing the chicken coop and expanding the orphanage's ability to farm chickens has been one of the most effective (short-term) projects that The Small Things has been able to do.

You might remember a fundraiser a while back for a brand new chicken coop to replace the dilapidated and rather insecure old one. We were delighted when we were able to replace it as part of a very important move to improve the children's diet. The food that the orphanage was able to provide for the children on a limited budget tended to be fairly low in protein. The stock of chickens was far too small to provide meat and eggs for 25-30 children - in fact there was a grand total of 8 chickens in the orphanage coop! The orphanage was barely benefiting from the stock it did have because the coop was not giving the hens protection from the weather.

The old chicken house in all its glory as the new one went up

While they were at the orphanage, board member Marie and her mother took on the challenge. In just over two weeks they were able to have a large, secure new chicken coop built by local craftsmen using only locally purchased materials. They also bought the first 6 months worth of chicken feed and made a plan with the mamas to make the chicken house project self-sufficient. Rather than relying on outside money to feed the chickens, it was agreed that after the first six months of building up capacity to around 50, a few would be sold each month to pay for food for the others.
With about 50 chickens, the children were able to have eggs every day and meat twice a week, which brought a huge improvement in nutrition.

The foundations going down.

The kids inspecting the new addition to their home.

The chickens settling in.

Marie out buying a 6-month supply of chicken feed.

A little while on, and the chicken project has suffered a couple of setbacks. Not everything can always go smoothly and we're now working on building the chicken stock back up once again. Unfortunately a few chickens were stolen, and a few weeks back a mysterious animal (a 'kicheche' - weasel or ferret) got into the chicken coop and we lost several big hens and quite a few chicks. This means there are currently too few chickens to be selling any for chicken food, but we're hoping to start that up again as soon as possible.

In the meantime we have 50 new babies at the orphanage - baby chicks!
The new coop is really wonderful for having chicks and big chickens at the same time, because the littlest ones aren't in danger of being trampled (which was once a common problem) since they can be in separate rooms. The heater light bulbs in the new coop also mean that we can get more chicks than before, since they don't all have to be kept warm by a mama hen.
The children loved seeing the chicks in the box before they went into the coop, probably even more than they enjoy trying (and failing) to catch the big chickens as they roam around outside.

Our 50 newest Nkoaranga residents are now growing up under the watchful eyes of Baba ('father') Nicky, who looks after the garden and the coop, and Kaka ('brother') John, who does the outside cleaning work. Hopefully they will bring the orphanage lots of extra nutrition, a bit of extra money and even more baby chicks over the next few months and years.

“A mother, a daughter, a needle and some thread”

Two incredible women, Kristina Alexander (who is one of our board members) and her mum, Sandra truly showed the love and commitment they have for each other and for the kids at Nkoaranga when they took on the challenge of hand-making 54 dresses for the girls at Nkoaranga orphangage!  This week, Kristina has taken the time to tell us about this fantastic achievement, and the support which made it possible.

As far back as I can remember, my mom has always been talented and could take a piece of fabric and, with the help of a needle, thread and her fantastic imagination, she would miraculously turn it into something beautiful.  So when I had the idea last Christmas to sew a few dresses for our girls at Nkoaranga orphanage, without hesitation she was on board.  At first we decided that we would sew about a dozen and then we decided, why stop there?  It wouldn’t be our typical mother daughter project if we didn’t out do ourselves, so we set our goal at 54.  Many people asked us why we were sewing 54 dresses and the answer was simple - it represents the 54 countries that make up the continent of Africa, one dress for every country.

Our first weekend we spent going through all her sewing boxes that were full of fabric she kept moving from house to house, or fabric that was passed on to her from her friends.  I always encouraged her to part with it but she always reminded me, “I may use it someday for something”.  The fabric consisted of pieces that were as old as I was!  In fact, my sisters and I had dresses made out of the same fabric when we were little girls.

Once all the fabric was washed and ready we began to cut the patterns out in a variety of sizes to make sure that every little girl had at least one that fit.

One weekend we decided we were going to have a sewing marathon – all day Saturday, and all day Sunday.  Saturday morning found us both sitting at the table in her sewing room, each working on our own machine and tackling our project one dress at a time.  While listening to music, being fed by my Dad, reminiscing and talking about the orphanage I began to realize that it wasn’t so much about working on a project together with my mom but it was about taking our talent and turning it into a message of love and creating little dresses that would in turn create giant smiles on the faces of the girls at Nkoaranga.  As each dress was finished my mom would spend her evenings sitting and hand sewing the snaps down the back, and adding her finishing touch: a label that reads “Handmade with love from your Granny in Canada.”  Just a gentle reminder that even though we are separated by thousands of km their Granny is always thinking about them.

Unlike the women that sew for a living in the local villages, we always had power, a meal and fresh water to quench our thirst.  We worked on fancy machines, but constantly reminded ourselves of the women who sew on old-fashioned machines as they rely on intermittent power to complete their work.  Remembering once again that we are truly blessed and in turn can bless those on the ground in Tanzania.

When I think back to last Christmas and the dresses we made, a few things come to mind.  I have an amazingly talented mom that has never hesitated to be a true example of love.  She possesses a caring and generous heart; not only for her own three daughters but to everyone she meets along the way, she is supportive of me and my work with The Small Things, and when faced with a challenge she is always open and willing to tackle it.

Kristina's mum, Sandra, showing her undying support for
Kristina as she accepted her Associate of Arts Degree in
Psychology this year.

It really is true that it takes a village to raise a child, that some fabric, a needle and some thread woven together create something beautiful, and that “We can do no great things, only small things with great love.”  ~ Mother Teresa

To finish, here are some pictures of our beautiful girls in their gorgeous dresses when they first received them...

And now, almost a year later? 

 

Still going strong!