Hearing Mama Wini describe her present reminded us that life wasn’t always so sweet for the John family. 

In March of 2003, we at Tanzanian Children’s Fund started chasing an ambitious dream – help a community of 10,000 find a path out of poverty.

The difference between Juliana Andrea and the other success stories we have shared with you is that we didn’t have a direct hand in helping Juliana accomplish her dreams of graduating from college with a Nursing Assistants degree.

As 2017 comes to a close, it is amazing to see just how far we have come in building brighter futures for our community of 10,000.

At any moment, Elibaraka Dawite could list 110 of all 195 countries. He could tell you about what makes a Basking Shark unique. He could name the largest lake in each of the seven continents.

The truth is that Kizzie is lucky to be able to play because it means that she has a childhood to enjoy.

Picture learners in groups, many deeply engaged in discussions, several predicting whether an object is an insulator or a conductor, others attaching wires to voltmeters to test their predictions, some recording their findings.

Meet the Mamas of the Rift Valley Women’s Group

Once she felt safe, Neema was finally able to focus inside the classroom and has been a star student ever since. 

In the coming months we will be soliciting applications, interviewing, and selecting a Director of the Rift Valley Children’s Village to join Peter in assuming many of those managerial responsibilities here at RVCV. 

On July 15th, we celebrated our 620 fabulous microfinance clients at TCF’s Annual Microfinance Day! 

Cognizant of the strain that child care can place on families, six years ago, when a new mother teaching at Gyetighi Primary School had to split her attention between her new child and the classroom, the Tanzanian Children’s Fund (TCF) saw an opportunity to support teachers and their families by offering free daycare for their children.

When we held our first parent-teacher conference at Gyetighi Primary School ten years ago, I was shocked to see only a handful of people show up. 

TCF’s Malengo Mamas and Babas are unsung heroes and are perfect examples of how “the ripple effect” is taking place in our community. 

Vincent Thlemu is a perfect example of TCF’s work coming full circle. 

When a mother walks into the Rural Community Health Clinic seeking medical care for her child, Nurse Gretchen doesn’t just see an opportunity to treat the child, she also sees the opportunity to improve the health of his caretaker.

Meet Mery, one of our most enterprising microfinance clients. Mery joined our program in 2012 and used her first loan of $120 to build a small shop in Oldeani town.

Faraja Dawite was just 4 years old when her mother died during the delivery of her youngest sister Neema. Faraja was left in the care of her disabled father, who disappeared just a year later. 

For most of Sinora’s life, all she heard was people telling her “no.” Like many other young girls living in the developing world, she grew up in a system that always seemed to be working against her.

The Rift Valley Children’s Village is their home, we are their family, and that lasts forever.