The Street Kids

As much as Roxy and I loved working in the clinic, we were a little jealous of all the playtime some of the other Hostel Hoff volunteers got at their orphanage and school projects. Ali took mercy on our need for a game of football and invited us to Amani Center for Street Children on our last Friday afternoon. Please check out the link above and take a look at their website. They are doing some amazing and necessary work in Moshi and function entirely on donations. In a nutshell, Amani takes in street kids, educates them on site or helps them integrate into local schools, gives them a place to live, food to eat, teaches basic life skills and generally gets them back on their feet. The best part is, Amani social workers work with the children's families, with the final goal of reunification.

We were blown away by the modern facilities in a nice neighborhood and also by the dedication of the workers and volunteers. Amani requires a 6 month volunteer commitment and from my observations of Ali's experience you are truly immersed in Tanzanian culture. Ali's Kiswahili is enviable to me, who can barely get by in town.

On Friday afternoon's the kids get free time, so everyone was outside enjoying the beautiful weather, climbing all over the jungle gym, showing off their bomb acrobatic skillz and playing an intense game of soccer (football, whatever). They were so much fun and were so excited we were there to hang out and play with them. Baraka and Gertruda were particularly playful. I'm a little upset that I'm no longer as quick and bold on a jungle gym as I used to be. Apparently I'm out of practice!

Even though this project isn't part of our fundraising or work in Tanzania, I wanted to include it in the blog to show how great the need is in Tanzania for all variety of donations and volunteers. This is another group doing amazing work over there, and I wanted to get people interested in it, so even when our project is over and our goals are reached you can see that there are so many other places and people who need our support. I hope my project has inspired some of you and I hope that we can having a continuing impact on a community that is so deserving of it.
 
Also I had to include this amazing picture of Kili that we took while hanging out at Nyumbani Hotel's rooftop bar. Pretty!