Volunteer Blog: Jeanettes first two weeks at WIL!

Jeanette volunteered with WIL November-December 2014. Please take a minute to read about her first two weeks at WIL!

Hi all, From Tanzania Some news. Last thursday I arrived in Arusha, Tanzania. I live here outside of town in a house with two other volunteers. Daily we take the Dala -Dala to our project Walk in Love. I stay for 4 weeks and after my work Ard-Jan Will come to visit me and see what I have done.

Walk in Love project assists and supports families that are struggling to keep their children in their home or community. Walk in Love provides a safe place for children to come during the day where they are cared for. Now 32 kids Age from 8 months till 11 years. It's good to see that the nanny 's do everything for them. For me it feels great to help them with it. Ofcourse a lot of friends in Holland ( and Singapore) supported me and not only with money but also with clothes and toys. Yesterday all children got this surprise. Also One of my friends nitted baby hats. It's great to see the little ones with it. Today tasted Ugali, flower, tomato sauce, potatoes and spinach. good to know: you have to eat with your hands. Strange for us and we mess with food but the children don't.

Now after one week I can say that I get used to the " african time" . So don't rush and go with the flow. Swahili language is not easy and at the project English is hardly spoken, so that's a nice challenge but I have almost 5 more weeks to go. Everyday I try to talk with locals and they are very helpfull with it. Keep in contact and ofcourse Some photo's of these lovely children. Kwaheri!!!

Two nice weeks at the Walk in Love

After getting used to the african life I feel good here. The project is amazing with a good vision of the manager Aubree. Experience is that children going well as long as they can stay with family members at their home and not in orphanage. So I know that the money which my family and friends have donated Will come at the right place. With all that money we can give all the familys ( 32) a great gift before school holiday will start in december.

I brought a suitcase filled with clothes for the children and together with Neema we distribute it to the children. The daycare is great and it's good to be part of this all. With the nanny's I have a good contact and I investigate what they need at the moment. We have a lot of fun which is good.

"Because African culture is so different compared to the Dutch 

one, I hope we can help them to see what they can do to make

it better for their children and themselves.

I'm not going to change that in a few weeks but I can help to make a start."

One of the things is the shop where the tailors can sell their own made clothes. It's lovely what they have done right now but they don't have a place to show all the nice dresses, laptopbags and other things.

On december 4th the shop is ready to open. After a few days cleaning ,painting the walls, decorating the ceiling and the doors with the nanny's and the tailors their is now a room where it's nice to go into and buy something new.

Hopefully this is the start of raising some money for the project which they can do themselves. This must be great!!!!

I'm proud of all the help from everyone in such a short time…..

With my friends Marian en Tirza we made a beautiful wall with a white heart and all the foodprints of the children and nanny's on the wall: WALK IN LOVE!!!! Great it was fun to do this.

Kwaheri!

UPDATE:

The WIL Shop is up, running and bringing in much needed money to help run the center and support all the hard working mamas. Along with Dolly, the women are working the shop Thursday-Saturday. 

Thank you Jeanette and everyone who donated to make this possible! We relay on donations to help us run the center but now we can move forward to making WIL a more self sustaining project!

Thank You Jeanette!