Our speaker came to us when Kerry Anne, a member of the Rotary Club of Camberwell shared a post at the Camberwell Market with our President Tony.
Kerry Anne is Director of a small project, auspiced by Global Development Group, a non government organisation (NGO) called Team Vista, located in Moshi, Tanzania in the Kaloleni Ward. The ward surrounds the town’s rubbish dump, and Team Vista’s goal is to elevate the children’s living standard through helping them understand the value of education and also enable them to be protected from abuse and manipulation.
Kerry Anne became involved through her son, who went to teach for a year in Moshi not long after she was widowed ten years ago. By visiting her son there during his stay, Kerry Anne became deeply involved with the NGO and how it is carrying out humanitarian projects with approved partners and providing aid to relieve poverty.
Kerry Anne has four sons here and also mothers 9 sons in at Team Vista, who have no other parents. She strives to show all the children that there is an alternative to eking out an existence foraging from the tip and is extremely proud of the boys and girls who have shown talent and achieved university degrees or highly sought after trades. Kerry Anne showed us a video showing the wretched rubbish dump and homes and, in contrast, the newer buildings that allow education and housing of children who accept the challenge to change their lives (with a backing song of John Lennon’s “Imagine” which was so poignantly appropriate).
Several moving stories, such as of the newly qualified doctor, the electrician, the deaf sewers’ shop and the ten year old child pimped by her mother were told with the pathos of a parent. We saw the large, new, wash house built through help from the Rotary Clubs of Jamestown, New York and Camberwell, Victoria. The Hornsby NSW Rotary Club has contributed too, but my notes couldn’t keep up to notate their effort.
In school, classes comprise 60-70 children, so the keen ones form tutor groups after school to improve their progress. Kerry Anne visited, until COVID-19, twice a year, and she despairs at the slow progress when she can only communicate from a distance, and the bureaucratic burdens imposed on goods donated from DIK and others.
A contribution of $US20 a month supports a primary (5-14 years) or secondary student, and it is $US1500 for university sponsorship (where, in addition, a laptop and phone are necessary tools).
Whilst this project is only 100 km from Gemma’s school we learned about last year, it is both very different and similarly worthy.
Thank you Kerry Anne for changing to Zoom at late notice and for providing us with an amazing insight into your work and life.
Global Development Group has Australian approved charitable status. If you wish to help, contact Kerry Anne at kerry@teamvista.com.au and look at their work through www.teamvista.com.au and https://globaldevelopmentgroup.org/au/-
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