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No. 9 January - March 2012

This is the space created by Mwema Children for its friends and fellows who like to follow the news and outcomes of Mwema children. The news is also published in Mwema website: www.mwemachildren.org We are back to our normal schedule of quarterly basis for the newsletter, covering in this number from January to March 2012, featuring:

1. Tendering for Construction of Mwema school……………….……….page 1 2. Parents meeting with Karatu District Council and Mwema team..….page 4 3. Mwema Children Report ……………………………………………….page 6 4. Global Crisis Impact……………………………………………..………page 8

Within Mwema’s plans for the year 2011 it was finishing the second phase of building Memkwa classess; a Mwema owned Children Rehabilitation Centre for those children at high risk and in need of accommodation so as to make easy the rehabilitation process as part of preparations for reintegration process; and an administration block for Mwema team offices. The first and last ones were approved by a Spanish donor, Principado de Asturias, which is a regional government providing public grants for International Cooperation. The fund for the construction of Rehabilitation Centre is now requested to other Spanish donors and is still pending to confirm if the grants will be provided or not for this year 2012 as the proposal has been denied in previous years after being submitted to different donors.

1 . Tendering for Construction of Mwema School

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In order to fulfil donors regulations and transparent procedures Mwema launched a Call for Bidder for the construction of two more classrooms and the administration block to be funded by Principado de Asturias grants. Mwema team developed a tendering document with the support of Karatu District Council Engineers and other collaborators and volunteers and, finally published it in the media and local advertising for calling for bidders. The tender opening ceremony was held on 24th February 2012 at Mwema office in presence of the bidders’ representatives and an evaluator team composed of Karatu Civil Engineers, Arusha Region Civil Engineers and Mwema representatives.

Bid Evaluation Committee: from left to r ight Richard Missa (Arusha Regional Secretariate Engineer), Enos Lyatuu (Karatu Distr ict Building Technician) and Mr. Innocent Ambross (Karatu Distr ict Counci l Civ i l Engineer) during Bid Evaluation and Examination Session held at Mwema Administration Office

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After a thorough examination of the three proposals received the tender was given to a company called Magacom Ltd, from Dodoma Region. Soon after the tender was assigned to this company the construction work started as shown in the pictures.

In it ia l work (28/03/2012)

For the first time Mwema, on 30th March 2012, arranged a grand meeting with some spotted parents of children living in the streets. After conducting a research study last year (2011), which aimed at providing Mwema and other stakeholders a clear picture on the situation of the problem of children living in the street.

2. Parents meeting with Karatu District Council and Mwema team

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Parents who attended the meeting on 30th March 2012.

The main aim of the meeting was to paint a picture to these parents about the abuses that forced their children to run away from home to the streets, arguing them on the need to go out and find ways they can restore back their relationship with their children. Another objective was to discuss together on how parents can put favorable conditions for their children to return back and stay with their families. Despite the fact that it is always hard to find these parents and the fact that they feel afraid for attending this kind of meetings (as they are afraid being caught or finger-pointed), this event proved success as 15 out of 19 invited parents attended the meeting. The event counted with the presence of a representative from Karatu District Council (KDC) and a representative of Karatu District Commissioners office. All representatives addressed the point of parents’ need to seek for their

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children, restoring their relations and, finally, finding ways, by working closely with Mwema and KDC, to create conditions to nurture their children.

Faci l itators of the meeting: KDC, DC office and Mwema representatives

Parents showed gratitude to Mwema for taking care and concern of their children and expressed their feelings of frustration and rejection to look for their children once they had run away from home. They accepted to take the responsibility to raise their children, in collaboration with Mwema, and to take them back home. Mwema took the opportunity to distribute some educative materials on best care approaches for children since early stages and a book with Tanzania’s Law on Child Act of 2009 in a simple language which were donated to Mwema by Caucus for Children Rights (CCR) Tanzania.

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This kind of meetings is part of Mwema’s core activities for the rehabilitation of children and their families in the mid and long run. Efforts are needed to ensure their participation as well as the active implication of KDC Social Welfare department. As you may already now from previous Newsletters and reports in Tanzania the academic course starts on January each year. This year, during the first quarter of the year, Mwema enrolled new children to its MEMKWA program, fifteen of then were coming from street. The Memkwa program is the entry point for the rehabilitation and family reunification for these children.

New Memkwa students (March 2012)

Children’s report

3. Mwema Children Report

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Children educated at Mwema’s Memkwa school and sponsored by Mwema in other primary and schools.

MEMKWA

BOYS GIRLS TOTAL

Age Cohort 1 18 10 28

Age Cohort 2 25 12 37

Total 43 22 65

SECONDARY

Form I 2 0 2

Form II 3 0 3

Form III 3 1 4

Form IV 5 0 5

TOTAL 13 1 14

PRIMARY SCHOOL

ENDORO 5 1 6

 Among the 14 children currently studying secondary school, twelve of them have been transferred to Florian Secondary School in Karatu District. This has been achieved thanks to the collaboration between Mwema and this school and World Vision Tanzania, which co-sponsors 4 of these children’s studies at that school. This has discharged Mwema residential centre from a number of 7 elder children that had been admitted in the centre since the beginning of Mwema program in 2006 and were already aged around 18 years, nearly to finish secondary studies. It has also left the opportunity of other younger children currently living in the street to get

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a room in Mwema’s centre for a period of time, while the team works on their family reunification. Mwema now faces two main challenges: social integration of those youth that will finish secondary school by the end of this year and family reunification of new children admitted at Memkwa and Mwema centre. The global crisis has struggled in most countries in one way or another. In the case of Tanzania the global crisis left the economy with social, economic and financial impact from the macro level to individuals. At the Macro level, the crisis has reversed Tanzania’s GDP growth projection from 8% to 5% by the year 2009/10. By May 2009, the Tanzanian government had estimated a loss of about $255 million in domestic income, leaving the economy with negative implication in terms of investments, employment and income to various actors in the economy adversely affecting a number of sectors such as agricultural, mining and the tourism sectors. At the household level GCE has left households with increased levels of poverty, hunger and unemployment with changes in expenditures pattern laving huge impacts on social progress in areas such as education, health and nutrition outcomes. 1, 2, 3. Mwema program has high dependency on donors’ funds, mainly from Spanish donors. The Spanish government has recently reduced in more than 50% its

1 Lunogelo, H.B., Mbilinyi A., & Hangi, M (2009): The Global Financial Crisis and Tanzania: Effects and Policy Responses. Final Report. ESRF, 31st Dec 2009 2 Tibandebage, P & Kida, T (2011): The Gendered Impact of the Global Economic Crisis on Financing and Access of Health Care in Tanzania. ESRF Discussion Paper No. 37. 3UN (2011): Global Social Crisis; Report on the World Social Situations, 2011. United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, New York, 2011.

4. Global Crisis Impact

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grants for international cooperation, as a result of the budget constraints and limitations imposed from central government and European Union. Since the crisis started in 2008, many of the Regional Governments of this country have reduced their grants for International Cooperation up to the point of cancelling them since 2010, in some cases. This poses a big challenge for development programs depending from Spanish grants in many countries, specially Tanzania, which is not within the prioritized countries for the Spanish Agency of International Cooperation. Mwema has multiple partners some providing private funds and others depending on public grants. The current construction for the school and administration block is being 100% funded by Spanish public grants. But the challenge is ahead, the horizon for 2013 is still uncertain as most of the applications done for other grants have been denied or not yet confirmed. Mwema will need to make another effort of diversifying sources of funding, including developing small income generation activities and subsistence activities. ______________________________________________________________________ We are glad to share with you all these news from Mwema Children and hope to be back to you soon.

Thanks again for your interest and collaboration

Mwema Street Children Centre Karatu PO BOX 356 KARATU

TANZANÍA

Cell: +255 755376212 / +255 784288708 Email: mwemastreet@yahoo.com

Website: www.mwemachildren.org