Dear Friends of Mama Hope

For the past two weeks, I have been living in Moshi, Tanzania, working with Nyla and Bryce on Mama Hope’s most recent project, the new St. Timothy’s School in honor of Vince Mulroy. How this whole project got propelled into action, I am still unsure, but I am going to do my best to try to explain.

Three months ago, I sent Mama Hope an email asking if they could help to build the new St. Timothy’s School. My email explained that a few summers s ago I volunteered as a teacher at the St. Timothy’s school. Currently St. Timothy’s rents their facility, and due to a Tanzanian law they must build a school of their own. In my email, I emphasized the sense of community that I felt in the Newland community. Before I knew it, Mama Hope had agreed to take on the project, I had a plane ticket to Tanzania booked, and the rollercoaster of a ride had officially begun.

Last Wednesday was the community meeting with the Newland village leaders. It was in a small one-room school. We squeezed onto about 5 benches with 16 village leaders. At one point in the meeting, almost every single village leader had their hands up with ideas and suggestions about how to get the community involved, using local labor and the most cost-efficient materials.

At the end of the meeting, Mr. Minja (the village chairman) said, “We are together now.” He then explained that the village leaders had decided to hold another community meeting on Saturday where they would invite all of the surrounding villages.

That following Saturday, over 200 people crowded outside in a makeshift arena. Nyla and I sat with the women against a wall in the back (they tried to get us to sit in the front with the men and we said no way jose!). Bryce sat in front with the men.

Throughout the meeting we could hear a man going around the village announcing the meeting on his megaphone, and soon enough people started arriving from all corners; men on bicycles and women with babies on their backs. For 3 hours there was a lot of back and forth in Swahili, and then all of a sudden, we were being taken to look at a plot of land the village had just given for the health center (phase two of the project). I’m going to be honest. To me, this was a plot of land—no different from the next plot of land. But when we turned around and smiled, the whole place erupted in cheers, laughter and clapping. To them, this land was the best of the best, more so, it was the future site of their health center, and very symbolically, they were entrusting this land to “us” as their partners.

It was humbling. It also once again emphasized that these communities are far stronger and more united than anyone gives them credit for; they really do know what is best. We couldn’t help but laugh and dance along with them.

As you can see, this whole project is progressing at a very fast pace and it is definitely taking on a life of its own. We will break ground in a short while, and I look forward to keeping you updated!

All the best,

Lucia Crenshaw

Dear friends of Mama Hope,

After a 12 hour bus ride where we got trapped at the border for 2 hours with no visas and money, we have made it safely to Moshi, Tanzania. Yesterday myself, Lucia Crenshaw Mama Hope’s Program Coordinator and Bryce Adolphson, our photographer met with James Nathaniel the founder of Tanzanian Children Concern and visited the site where St. Timothy’s school is going to be built. Throughout the day we met with the architect, and the local officials who will be overseeing the project. They told us that they had purchased this land for the school in 2005 and they had all but given up hope that the school would ever be built.

The site of the school is in the center of six villages and will serve a community of 30,000 people when completed. It is a beautiful plot of land about 5 miles from Moshi at the base of Kilimanjaro, surrounded by sunflower fields and enormous baobab trees. During the committee meetings Mama Hope’s team stood back and let the community officials run the show trusting that they would know best what was needed to initiate the construction. Because of this approach by the end of the day they had decided all labor and the construction of the bricks would come from the communities themselves. That they would simply tap into the city water instead of dig an expensive well and that they didn’t need to put up power lines to get electricity that they could just share the lines of a neighboring building and share the costs. In the end these creative solutions are going to save them thousands of dollars and make the school a truly sustainable project. We were very excited about these conclusions because we know we would have never learned about them if we insisted on leading the project. They are true examples of how incredibly resourceful the communities are when you leave the planning and implementation of the project in their hands.

That’s all from the field for now!

Yours in hope,

Nyla

To learn more about St. Timothy’s School project: Click Here