Losinoni

Try for a moment to imagine the following: it is the dead of night in northern Tanzania, you are in a dark remote village, a very long way away from anything resembling a city, you are trying to sleep in a tent whose sides are flapping wildly in the wind, and the Maasai warriors standing guard over your campsite are busy chasing away an extremely noisy hyena. Maybe this doesn’t sound like the vacation of your dreams, but for eight AfricAid volunteers, it was the experience of a lifetime!

AfricAid’s relationship with the remote, rural village of Losinoni began in 2003, when a group of AfricAid supporters visited there and saw first-hand the extraordinary needs of the village’s public primary school — and also, the village’s deep commitment to education. AfricAid had first learned about Losinoni through Rotary International, which had helped to install a new water system there in order to deal with the high level of fluoride in the village’s water that was causing bowing of the bones among the community’s children. Serving a huge catchment area, the village’s school was unable to adequately serve its ever-increasing population of eager primary school students, many of whom walk three to five miles each way to attend class every day, and who were being crammed into rudimentary, unfinished classrooms with 100 or more fellow students.

So it was for that reason that those eight AfricAid volunteers found themselves in Losinoni in the summer of 2004 to help finish the construction of two new classrooms for which AfricAid had provided funding. The group sanded walls, painted and helped out in any way they could. It was hard work, but also tremendously fulfilling. Along the way, they also found time to have fun with the school kids, teaching them how to play frisbee and softball with the sports equipment they brought to leave there. For more about AfricAid’s classroom building experience in Losinoni, read the newsletter story about it.

At the end of that very successful trip, the volunteers learned that the school had no lunch program, and that most of the students there generally subsist on one evening meal of “ugali” (corn porridge) each day. As a result, AfricAid has created a sort of micro-credit arrangement with the mothers of the school’s children; these “Maasai Mamas” create beautifully beaded key chains and bracelets, which are then sold here in the U.S. to generate funds for a lunch program at the school. The AfricAid Kids Team (AKT) then joined in the effort to help provide lunches for these students through offering these handicrafts at their annual AKT event!

The results of these two AfricAid programs can best be demonstrated by the fact that Losinoni’s primary school attendance has increased from 50% of the eligible population to over 90% since that trip!

AfricAid is proud of what has been accomplished in this community, but the needs continue. Even more classrooms are needed to adequately accommodate the school’s 750 students, and the school lunch program requires ongoing funding. Importantly, AfricAid collaborated with the Evergreen Rotary Club in 2009 to fund a solar power project that has brought electricity to the village for the very first time. Without some form of power in the school or teachers’ homes, it is exceedingly difficult to attract teachers to this remote location. The school now has a copy machine and a computer in a school common room, and hopes to eventually supply lighting to the teachers’ houses, as well. Some of the school’s other needs are discussed by the head teacher at Losinoni in a video you can view here. If you would like to help provide classrooms and other educational facilities for Losinoni, or contribute to expanding electricity to teacher houses, please visit our Donate Now page.

If you would like to help provide a student with a school lunch, by purchasing the key chains or bracelets that have been lovingly handcrafted by Losinoni’s “Maasai Mamas”, please click here. Losinoni bracelets and key chains may be purchased for $28 each ($25 plus $3 S/H), an amount which will feed the entire 750 student body with lunch for one day! In the Comments box, please indicate how many key chains and/or bracelets are being ordered, as well as the shipping address.