project

Kesho Leo children's village in Tanzania, East Africa. ("Kesho Leo" means “tomorrow today” in Swahili).

how we’re helping

fws has purchased three acres of land in a village outside of Arusha, in northern Tanzania, East Africa.

There, we are currently employing 20 Tanzanian famers to build an eco-friendly children's village that will become home to 16 vulnerable women, their children and 40-80 children that have been orphaned.

This children's village will offer early learning education, health, social skilling and leadership programs that prepare children for successful social and educational interaction.

the structure

The children's village will be built with the combined efforts of a skeleton volunteer team and local labourers. The structure will consist of:

• two sleeping bomas under one continuous roof designed to maximise rainwater collection. Inside the bomas, there will be separate sleeping rooms, each accommodating five children and one house-mum.
  

• a live-in manager's residence

• a nurse's medicine room (which will eventually become a health clinic for the wider community to use)
  

• an African-style kitchen area (complete with biogas cookers and passive cooling cupboards)

• an early-learning and community centre

• composting toilets, water-saving shower rooms and a grey-water laundry
  
  
• a secure lock-up container and computer storage room
  

• an open-air communal dining room

To see where we're at with the plans, check out the photographic evidence of our building progress.

the concepts

We will also establish a permaculture garden and farming plot (so each child can maintain their African culture by learning to grow and harvest local crops).

We’ll house a small compound for livestock (so each child can learn to rear cows, goats, pigs, chickens and ducks the way their parents would have taught them to).

On the environmental front, we’re currently researching into energy solutions such as solar power and biogas, and also looking at ways we can reduce Kesho Leo’s water consumption (which is especially significant given the ongoing water shortage in Tanzania). We are using our local contacts for advice as well as professionals in the area of international aid and the environment. To find out more see our environment page.

Initially the Kesho Leo early-learning and community centre will be used to educate Kesho kids, but it is our aim to offer a number of education programs to the local community as soon as possible, so this centre quickly becomes an asset to the local people of Sinon.

the cost

To make Kesho Leo children's village a reality, our resources on the ground estimate we’ll need to raise about $A250,000 (we have already raised 60 per cent of this) to purchase the land and complete the building.

Once we have established Kesho Leo children's village and its surrounds, we will offer a sponsorship programs, whereby international sponsors can pay a certain amount each month to ensure that all the needs of a child at our children's village are met. We will also be offering sponsors the chance to sponsor our Tanzanian Kesho Leo house-mamas, manager, grounds staff, teachers and nurses.

the opening

Kesho Leo children's village will open its facilities to the first influx of residents - 8 vulnerable women and their children - by Christmas 2008.

Once these women and their children are settled, we will invite orphans into these families and then begin recruiting for our second influx of vulnerable women and children.

It is our plan that all Kesho Leo residents will benefit from food, water, shelter, accelerated learning, a deep understanding of their own culture, and not least, plenty of love and caring, and a very bright future.

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