Projects of the Sister Cities Salzburg - Singida
The emphases of our projects are on health service, education, self-help campaigns, infrastucture and water supply.
Running and planed projects
Health
Concerning health Salzburg helps to build and renovate dispensaries and to provide medical equipment and instruments, mainly in the rural regions. Our goal is to establish a sufficient number of health centers, so that no one has to walk more than 8 km to the nearest dispensary.
Education
To sustain education many schools and nursery schools have been equipped, renovated and built. Furthermore it is our aim to register all children of school age and make them attend school.
Home for Orphans and Streetchildren
Our current „major project“ is the building of a home for orphans and street children in Singida. After long time preparation, in May 2008 “Upendo Home” could finally be opened.
Stepwise children are accommodated, at the moment are living 15 boys at the home already. Until the end of this year they should be 30, after completion of all planned buildings there will be place for around 60 children.
At the beginning, working at Upendo Home was complicated for all concerned persons. The children were used to live in the street for many of years; that means constantly assertiveness and self-defence. They were relegated to the fringe of society. Without care and assistance from accountable adults, these children fight in grinding poverty for daily survival. Their only social nets are friendships and associations between like-minded children, whereas problems among each other are solved by quarrelling.
For many the abuse of glue, alcohol and Marihuana is a bright spot. So memories and experiences can be pushed aside and feelings like hunger, fear,.. can be dazed.
From this scenario the children come into Upendo Home. They have developed behaviours, which can not be arranged with the living in a home. With much patience and empathy, the Tanzanian Social worker Bruno tries to discuss with the children, to find solutions and to prepare them for the living in Upendo Home.
They arranged rules and all children got tasks, a structured daily routine was developed. The children should know that it also needs their effort and willing to live in Upendo Home.
A certain daily routine could be reached by now, the children feel good in their new home. Stories are told; they are singing and dancing together.
One can see positively, how the children feel good in this protected ambience. All collaborators, especially the two “Mamas” Rita and Tedy, succeeded in procuring the children, that there is afforded a home to them, where they get attention and where problems are solved. The children don’t have to carry their load any longer, whereby they can be children again.
Gender
Women bear the main burden of the daily struggle for survival. More and more women form self-help groups as a way out of poverty and dependence. Their goals are better education, better hygiene, improvements in the household and farming, bookkeeping and self-administration. Furthermore they want to gain the right to participate in decision-making. Salzburg supports these initiatives by building workshops and daycare centers and offers financial support for the purchase of tools.
