Hey all!

It looks like it has been a while since someone from Tabora has filled in the project news! Time to buck the trend.

The Tabora HAPO project is proceeding very well. There are currently 40 kids enrolled at the centre on the Orphans and Vulnerable Children scheme, of which 37 attend every afternoon after school. Three are in boarding school. The  children arrive at the centre at 2.30pm/3pm to then eat, leaving roughly 1hr 45 mins for a lesson.

Over the past couple of months we have been only teaching the children English, given that all secondary school is held in English. The children have been improving their English reasonably well, and remain very interested in learning the language and talking in English at every opportunity. Through May we have focused on teaching English by topic, selecting subjects such as the Body, the Market, Professions and Action Words and teaching vocab and grammar around that topic. Wednesday is art day, whilst Thursday is test day - we use this to gauge the children's progress. Friday remains sports day -Josh - a volunteer - had his mother visit at the end of May. She brought football kits and sports kits for the children - so now the children have uniforms for every Friday.

HAPO's long term aim here in Tabora is to release places for children on the programme. This can be done if the children's guardians - generally their grandmother, aunts or single mother - were to become financially sustainable, and hence be able to finance the children's primary schooling as well as daily food provision. In order to do this HAPO has been busy trying to devise sustainable ways of helping to get the guardians self-sufficient. The scheme is called Income Generating Activities (IGAs). The current plan is to provide farm assistance to guardians who have a plot of land but are too ill or old to cultivate it properly, to provide micro loans to guardians who have their own viable business venture or idea, and to set up a joint farming or poultry raising scheme on HAPO land. The crucial aspect of all these ideas is that guardian's have the incentive to repay the loan and turn up for work, and are rewarded accordingly. But it is still early days! 

Otherwise all else is great at HAPO in Tabora. The children are finishing off school this week (it is first week of June) so we will have the kids all day through June - a great opportunity to provide some one-on-one attention to those kids struggling with their English.

Jonathan, Andrea, Josh and Jamie -  Tabora volunteers May 2008.