Bethlehem Centre For

Mentally Disabled Children

P.O. Box 641

IFAKARA, TANZANIA

Tel: +255 23 2625175

E-mail: bethlehemcentre1@hotmail.com

bngwega@yahoo.com

THE ANNUAL REPORT 2013

1. Executive Summary

The year began for everyone of us

with the sense of uneaseness about what the future of the year

2013 holds in economical as well as social circle.Since 2009 there was always and oftenly realized

prospects of massive rising costs of material and standards of

living.These always have a great impact on the most vulnerable

groups in the society like mentally disabled children , their staffs

members and the society they depend upon.This comes as result

of much dependence on donation and greater uncertainty of getting

increased donation for the

sustainance of our activities and expansion of services and infrastsructure to cater for these vulnerable children and youth .

But it is not all bad news,our donors and friends have been with us as always supporting our centre

and its growth.We wish to convey our sincere appreciation and

gratitude for their love and dedication.

The aim of our centre’S programs

are primarily to impart skills and social integration.

Life challenges continue to face us too:water ,electricity ,domirtories conditions,staff qualifications and dedications.Our work is to work

through them and successful maintain the quality and level of our service.

VISION Full and quality inclusion of persons

with mental disability in Tanzania giving them independence as far as possible.

MISSION Empowering our children and youth

through better care,education and training,and providing them with environments and opportunity to access their rehabilitation and resetlement . VALUE STATEMENT BETHLEHEM CENTRE IFAKARA values and respect equal opportunity,protection of rights and full participation of children,youth and any person with mental disability.We believe that every person is involved in the rehabilitation of these children,youth & persons

2. Training and daily life of Children and Youth:

The objective was to offer quality care,training and education to 112 mentally dissabled children and

youth .and nursery and integrated kindergaten studies to 110 normal children by age of 3 to 6.years:

Care ,training and education was given according to ability of every

child and youth to manage himself or herself personally ,physically

and intellectually.Our annual programm dealt with 221 who

were divided into care 1 class up to 3,nursery and kindergaten,pre primary and primary classes and

vocation training classes. New children were taught how to make their beds,keep their

personal hygine and observe the centre timetable.only 53% were successful and other are still struggling but all still need

reminding.Thanks to elder girls and boys who help their young ones

daily in those aspects.

The pupils at kindergaten are faring very well.Last year all those

who finished here were received into governmental primary school

.On pre primary class which

involves mentally disabled children

who can read,write and count,two children were admited into Milola governmental primary school where they study with normal

children .After school we give them more tuition so as to give them more understanding of what they have been taught at school.

In vocational training ,youth are

faring very well especially in knitting weaving,,drawing and

Tairoling and carpentry .Some can make nice clothes to the

admiration of their parents evidence in the picture below.

As usual ,we had two sports competitions ;the first involving seven primary schools(including Bethlehem) in which they

competed in athletics,footbal,netball and handball.We were good in football and athletics but we failed badly in

netball and handball.The aim is always to integrate the community

with our children while giving them chance to show and express their

talents.

Figure 1Naishoki wearing her own made cloth

The second competition involved 12 teams of youth within kibaoni ward.These are combination of youth living near bethlehem and

the aim is the same to share our life and one children experience with them.Now our children are known and loved.Two times they

brought back two of our very notorious boys who jumped over

the fenci and tried to escape.They went well.

One boy called Daudi graduated

and we have employed him in the children kitchen.

We continue to build our children spiritually and morally through having Holy Mass on every Thursaday where we focus our

homilies in loving God and neighbour and how to respect their bodies and all the people.

We had a very unfortunate death of Salome Massawe who died two

days after coming late from holiday.She caught malaria and

was admitted for only a day and

her heart failed and she died.It was a very sad for us and more so as the leader of the family was not good to us who went with the body

to her parents house in kibaha. Another unfortunate accident happened at the end of the term

while one of the hired cars carrying staff and few children overtuned

and injured staff members and some of the children.

In all fairness the annual year 2013

has been good to the children and youth especially in their growth academically , morally and spiri tually.

3 Human resources. The main objective is having quality staff capable of utilizing

every resource within their capacity.

We have 81 workers in total

.Many have injob training qualifications and few are

specialized.The most important thing for now is that most of the workers are trying their best to

help,teach,lead and care for our children with what skill they have through education and experience.Our children need

love the most. Their working conditions are good though the biggest

challenge is their salaries in comparison to life standards of

today in Tanzania

.

We are still facing the problem of

qualified staff in the field of pysiotherapy ,speach therapy and

rehabilitation.We lack not only

Figure 2Bishop Libena and a staff member serving the children

teachers but also machines which

could by far better teachers efforts and children well being. We have managed to sent two

times ,teachers and sisters to two different centres in Dodoma and Njombe to learn what others are doing to better our children

training and care.In general ,we are doing better only we need

modern tools and machines for sports and rehabilitation.

We have a new head teacher

named Mr.Mwanja and we hope with his good cooperation bethlehem can still offer a quality

and quantitaive care and education. We are luck to get a new teacher

from the District Council named and Mr mpinge has gone for further

studies and We had one death of teacher Irene Ngawambala and we

pray that her soul may rest in peace of the Lord.

Our resolve in all our meetings is that all of us must give out our best to serve the children under our care.

In a meeting with Mother general ,It was agreed that Bethlehem Has to help Bethlehem sister’s

contribution to Office of Mother General as all other houses are

contributing and so every year starting last year ,the Centre has

to contribute 2,500,000 per

annum.IT should be noted that The

sisters are working under contract with the Diocese of Ifakara which represent TEC.

3.1 Annual parent seminar We has seminar with parents as usual so as while we empower

them with skils and means of helping our children ,we are all

assured of our children’s quality improvement.

4 Infrastructure

The main objective is to renovate and develop and quality necessary

structures:

We have enough land to realize our dreams of inclusive education and better staff housing.Our focus is on the block of classes which is at

finishing stage as seen in the above picture and get more fund to finish the self contained built hostel for mentally disabled youth

working here.

Normal repairs of water piepes and cocks was done and also we had to

buy a new engine for the

generator.we are waiting for it.

Many tables were broken or destroyed and we had to make new ones within our carpentry section .we had to reroof one part

of the canteen with special grasses as the old one were decaying and allowing rain to penetrate.

5. Self reliance activities:

The main objective is To meet 55 % of the normal expenditure budget of Bethlehem Centre:

Our main self reliant projects are 15 rent shops, rent rooms, seven renting houses, canteen, hurling machines,gardening,farming,

computer room, animal husbandry and products that are produced by

children hand workers.Rentshops an house rent are stable always as

they depend only on payment done

by tenants. Animal husbandry has passed a lot of challenges as disease on pigs and chicken have made us start a new again.Cattles

do produce only milk which is for children on some days and with the medicine and food they consume ,we have little to have as an

income to contribute to the budget.

On hurling machine ,business is not bad though the price of paddy

and rice has remained very low .A

large part of our income last year

was used to resettle the theft of one of our former workers at the machine who ran away without settling with the Sr in charge and

the client. We have established a task force involving the watchmen, and two sisters, dorotea and salome.This has helped a lot in

making the hurling machine a producing item.

On farming, we had a little income

of produced maize and paddy in comparison to consumers. The

climate at Idete was not conducive to produce enough for children throughout the year. So we have

to buy food for children and youth until the end of the annual year on June 2014.

In short we are still in the process of rediscovering new economical opportunities which will bring income and which our benefactors

could support .Projects which will meet our goals of quality and

quantitave care and training.

6. Achievements:

Bethlehem Centre Ifakara has got the aim of improving the quality of its activities

through realizing underneath specific objectives on care and training,budget,acquiring of trained staff ,having appropriate

machine/equipments, adequate training materials, and availability

of necessary structures to mention them but a few.

“Heroism consist on hanging on

one minute longer “ The annual year 2013 has witnessed for the first time since Bethlehem Centre started the graduation of a form

four secondary mentally disabled student .Bora Gowele made a history throughout Tanzania and the life of mental disabled persons.

It’s the sign of the beginning of good things to come. Elias who

studies in standard one is also surprising his teachers at

governmental Milola primary school.

We are finishing the block of classes for inclusive education

which will offer our children and normal children an opportunity of their lifetime that is to get quality education and training for their

better future life. Moreover ,2013 was year that many families, groups of people

and many good willed people visited Bethlehem centre to greet

and share with them small presents and food.Mr Mboya from

Mang’ula and Dr Mama Naishoki

were exemplary as they showed their love by celebrating and eating with children and all of us on their very different important life

occasions. All the children have improved according to their differing mental

capacities and more especially on socialization skills and sports.

7. Challenges :

“Heaven is not reached at a single bound but we build the ladder by which we rise “

We have many challenges arising from our annual life events,

activities and strategies:

• Lack of enough trained staff especially on speech and

physio-therapy • Unreliable climate which

brought little harvests.

• The raising of new salaries , areas and standard of living in Tanzania

• Bad Morality of children and

lack of cooperation from some parents.

• The present roofing of all dormitories for children(TNG

wood) except the new one after the fire need to be

changed to avoid fire catastrophe like that of 2009

• Condition of sisters’ and

father’s house on roof and windows and colour needs renovations.

• Low turnover of unstable

micro projects like poultry and animal keeping.

• Lack of very basic facilities which though very expensive

are necessary for physio and speech therapy programs.

8. Strategic plans for 2014/2015

• Seek support of volunteers who are specialized on physio and speech therapy so that while working here on

short time ,they can teach our staff the basics for future

continuity of such knowledge • Urging parents to meet their

commitments especially on moral and care support.

• Solicit funds for finishing the children hostel, procurement of educational facilities

,buying of used Noah car for children hospital use as it consumes little fuel, renovations on ceilings and

paintings of some dormitories and religious houses within the centre and basic workers remunerations

• Continue to encourage

participatory leadership style which this year has proved very

fruitful in our daily duties.

Encourage all the staff to be proud of our services through sharing in meetings.

• To continue enforcing the

governmental involvement by registering our centre to Ministry of Education as now we are under social welfare.

• Solicitation of Scholarship Training of director on

psychology and counseling

9. Conclusion The work and obligation of caring

and educating every citizen of Tanzania is the obligation of the Government. The Church and many private institutions help the

Government in imparting knowledge to its citizen. Practically,

it has been tough and more so to vulnerable groups of people like

children with mental disability. Bethlehem centre has taken a

great responsibility of taking care, training and educating children with mental disability from all over

Tanzania since 1986. We have truly had to thank our benefactors especially The Aarau

Parish, Swiss Charities and individuals. We have to thank Capuchins in olten, Mr Daniel Hug, Markus Greiner, Thomas Jenelten

,Mr. and Mr. Eugene Schellenberg,Heinz and Magda and

many people and groups who have been helping the centre to grow

and meet its goals.

We have also to thank Tanzania Episcopal Conference (TEC), Our Bishop Salutaris Libena and his

cabinet for being close to us in advice and management. Above all, we have to thank the

children and youth, sisters, Teachers, care takers and all the

staff at Bethlehem Centre for being part and parcel of Bethlehem

growth and prosperity.

I would like to personally thank you all,as now I am seeking for sponsorship to study in Gregorian University be at the end of this

year or next year, all depending on availability of sponsorship for helping us in this 10years of servicing together and I hope to be

more of help when I finish my studies. If I fail to go to study the

we will be hearing from each other and working together again. May

God Bless you all.

“A man becomes like those whose society he loves”

Fr Basil Ngwega Director

Bethlehem centre

Febr.15th 2014