Walk in Love International: July 2013

Mama Teddy and her girls

If this is your first time reading about Mama Teddy please visit our first blog about her and her family, Meet Mama Teddy. It was a little over a year ago when we first met Mama Teddy and we are so thankful

to Leah Rogers for sponsoring this wonderful little family for the last year. Mama Teddy is still healthy and working, in fact, she just got a contract to make mandazi for the local school. If the girls had been taken to the orphanage that day I think Mama Teddy would have just died from a broken heart.

Rehema and Kelsey went to Karatu, which is a 2 hour bus ride from Arusha, last Friday to visit Mama Teddy, Teddy and Irenei. When a woman has her first baby in Tanzania they become Mama "name of their first born". This is whey we call Mama Teddy, Mama Teddy instead of Alfonsia. Women prefer to be called this instead of their given names. They are very proud to be Mamas.

Mama Teddy trying on the new clothing we sent for Irene.

Mama Teddy trying on the new clothing we sent for Teddy

As you can see from the picture above, the house they currently live in is falling apart. They have moved all their belongings into a neighbors house. We have contacted our friends at The House That Zac built and we are hoping they can visit Mama Teddy and possibly build her a house! It would be so amazing but like we are not even sure if Mama Teddy and her girls will qualify but we are keeping our fingers crossed!

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Now that Teddy is 4 and Irene is 3 we are looking at preschools in the area for them to attend. They go to work with there mom everyday and I am sure this is getting to be a lot for Mama Teddy and the girls. The sooner we can get them into a good preschool the better their chances are for a staying in school and getting a good education. We will be visiting possible preschools next month!

We also decided to give Mama Teddy some clothing to sell as a side business.

Here are some pictures of Mama Teddy at the market buying supplies for her mandazi business and food for the month.

Rehema told me about a neighbor of Mama Teddy's that was also in a very bad situation. She is a single mother of 3 boys and recently lost all use of her legs. We do not know what caused this to happened but we decided we wanted to give her the help we could at this time. We gave her enough clothing to sell to make enough money for at least the next month. We are going to visit her and her family next month as well to see how we can help this woman and her children.

Thank you all for your support! Please contact me if you would be interested in sponsoring Teddy or Irene in preschool, if you would like to help us raise funds for a new house for Mama Teddy or if you are interested in sponsoring Mama Teddy's neighbor.

Please contact me at walkinlovetanzania@gmail.com

Thank you all for your support and a huge thank you to Leah for sponsoring Mama Teddy and allowing her to continue to be there for her girls everyday.

Welcome WIL Friends and Family to our Monthly Newsletter!

We will be sending you updates on the different programs at WIL including current fundraisers and different ways you can make a difference in the lives of the women and children we are working with here in TZ!

June 2013

June has been a busy and exciting month! I am so happy to be back at the WIL Center with the women and children. I did have the opportunity to do some fundraising and raise awareness about WIL while visiting the US and since returning we have been able to reach more families and start the process of filling our center with the very basic items.

We are very happy to have my sister, Kelsey McClelleand, join us for the next 2 months! She has been teaching English three times per week as well as being a great extra pair of hands with the children! She has been doing research on grants, making brochures and will be working on the WIL Catalog. We are so grateful to everything she has done and we are happy to have her for another month!!

I am so happy to announce that Chiku and Julianna will be joining our WIL team part time. They will be making the beautiful jewelry that we sell online, at events and at a Fabulous Find. Chicku has been a part of the Believe in Me program since the beginning and we are excited to have her teach Julianna how to make jewelry in our current line. We are also very excited to see what different styles Julianna will come up with!

Meet Julianna!

Julianna joined our WIL Believe in Program last March. She lives very close to the community center and comes three times per week to participate in English classes, guest speakers, business opportunities and a chance to exchange ideas with the rest of the women in the group. In May Julianna's husband suffered a horrible injury while working and is now unable to work. Julianna is also 8 months pregnant. When Julianna came to us and told us she was very scared because her husband could not provide for her, her son and their child on the way we decided we needed to help her out. She started coming to the center everyday and began learning how to make jewelry from Chiku. We offered her a part time job making jewelry at the center. She will now be able to save some money for the medical expenses and a little money to help support her before she will return back to the center. Her baby will start at free daycare and we will continue to support Julianna.

Julianna is due in August

Chiku showing off her latest necklaces

WIL Prenatal Care Program

We have also decided this was a great opportunity for us to start up our pre-natal care program. Julianna and other pregnant women in the community will be given pre-natal vitamins and extra food every day. We are currently looking for any information about the other ways we can help support healthy pregnancies for the women and the child. We have purchased a scale and we have measuring tape to do simple check ups. If you are a midwife or have any helpful information on simple check up and nutrition we would really appreciate it. Please email me at walkinlovetanzania@gmail.com.

Security at the Center, meet Beau

Do to some recent break ins in our neighborhood Reuben, Rehema and I had a meeting about the security at the center. We discussed getting a night guard but Reuben felt that getting a dog would be a better source of security. Reuben has found another male puppy that once it is old enough will be joining Beau at the center. Everyone at the center get s big kick to of the little guy! The kids were a little stand offish at first but now he's just part of the family!

June goals and accomplishments

Cots and Play Equipment

Our first goal in June was to be able to raise enough money to buy some cots for our kids to sleep on. Our current sleeping situation is far from ideal. We have matts laying on the floors and our kids sleep on them at the moment. We started a US Quilt Drive and Australian Quilt and Duvet Drive that will be going through August to raise money for cots and outside play equipment. Please click on the links to help us reach our goals! We have ordered 3 toddler bunk beds but we still need 3 cribs and the play equipment. The kids love using me and everyone at the center at climbing equipment but they really need something bigger to play on! Please visit our Etsy Page to check the beautiful quilts, duvets, pillowcases and scarves that are made at the center to support the center.

Current sleeping situtation

Two Sewing Machines

We currently have 4 tailors and only 2 sewing machines. We recently met another young girl who we would love to bring into our tailoring program but we can't possibly bring anyone else on until we can get at least one sewing machine. We are hoping to raise the money to buy the sewing machines by selling our $8 WIL Scarves on Etsy. They are absolutely beautiful and made from Masaai Shuka or Kitenge. Please check out Etsy page here!

Start our Library and sandal workshop

We recently had a local builder come out and estimate how much it will cost us to finish our outside rooms. The walls and floors both need to be finished and sealed before we can do anything in the outside rooms. Our last estimate was over $1,000, which seemed impossible to reach! This mans estimate was only $400!! We are all so excited because now we know that this goal is attainable and we are hoping the builder can start in mid July!!

New Etsy Items

This month we started making duvets along with our quilts in US and Australian sizes. We also started making matching pillow cases that can wither be patchwork or all one kitenge. We are about to introduce out purse and bag line along with some beaded change purses! We will be working on an online catalog of all our WIL items in July!

July goals:

Get registration and webpage up for our biggest fundraiser of the year WIL 5K Day! This year we are not only holding our 5K but it will be a day or fun for the whole family!

Date: September 28th

Location: Lone Elm Park in Olathe

Registration page and more info coming soon!!

Library and preschool

Finish the outside rooms and start fundraising for our library that will also be the location of our preschool room and after school tutoring program

Get furniture and play equipment for the center!

We need play equipment and tables and chairs for our women to work on. Right now most of the work is done on the ground and we want to change that!

Sandal workshop

Finish the outside room and move forward with more research on how to make sandals and hopefully make at least one pair!

Healthy kids program

We will weigh and measure every child at the center to make sure they are at a healthy weight. Children that are found to be under weight will receive more food and every child will start getting vitamins.

How can you help?

*Help us to write grants

*Purchase a one of a kind handmade quilt or duvet from our Etsy Shop

*Share our fundraisers with friends and family

*If you are in the KC area swing by our booth at A Fabulous Find (5330 Martway, Mission, Ks)

*Become a monthly Sponsor

*Sponsor a child

* Follow us on Facebook

*Hold a fundraiser (please contact me at walkinlovetanzania@gmail.com for more info)

*Make a donation using paypal or by mailing a check payable to:

Walk In Love International

12802 S Arapaho Dr