Coronavirus: what this means for Made With Hope
With transparency being one of our founding values, we always try to inform our supporters what is happening as soon as possible. We’ve tried to make this update on what coronavirus means for Made With Hope as clear and candid as possible, even where that means saying that we don’t know what the answer is yet. Everything is changing quickly at the moment, and so this is our best understanding of the current situation.
Coronavirus in Tanzania
At the time of writing, there have been 12 confirmed cases of coronavirus in Tanzania. We and others are very concerned about potential further outbreak of coronavirus in Tanzania because of vulnerabilities like the country’s weak healthcare system, and a high proportion of the population with compromised immune systems due to malnutrition and HIV/AIDs. It’s also going to be difficult for Tanzanian society to take basic preventative measures due to crowded living and travel conditions that make it difficult to socially distance, many people living in poverty who can’t afford to stop working to isolate themselves, and a chronic shortage of basic facilities like sinks and soap for hand washing. East Africa is already struggling with a worst-in-70-years locust problem, and there are concerns about how the combination of these issues will negatively effect food security in the region.
The Tanzanian Government is in the difficult position of having an economy that is heavily dependent on Tourism (17% of GDP in 2019), and particularly safari tourists from America, Europe and China who are no longer visiting. This means that preventative measures such as the cancellation of flights to certain countries have taken place comparatively early, and schools have been closed since Wednesday the 18th of March.
Our partners CHETI NGO
CHETI NGO are based in Arusha. So far there has been one confirmed in the area. We are in daily contact with Zuma and Hussein, our partners at CHETI NGO in Tanzania. The FCO Travel advice means that we won’t be able to travel to Arusha for the time being, but we have been doing regular video calls instead. Usually Hussein, our Community Development Worker, consults extensively with the our school communities before, during and after our projects in the form of Community Meetings. Gatherings such as these have been put on hold for now, and Hussein himself, is now working from home.
CHETI NGO run 2 schools and 5 nurseries, and so over the last week the team have been very busy managing their orderly closedown. As small, socially-distanced gatherings are school permitted, CHETI teachers have been attending school this week to participate in peer learning sessions, where they have been discussing the topics that their students struggle with and sharing teaching best-practice. We were impressed to hear how quickly CHETI had identified and implemented this initiative.
We can’t remember what Zuma was saying to have us all laughing, but it was welcome relief from what was a serious call at time. We’re lucky to have such a great team on the ground in Tanzania.
Sponsor a Child
Made With Hope and our supporters sponsor a small number of vulnerable who attend at CHETI Primary and Secondary and who usually live in a hostel at the schools. CHETI have been very busy making arrangements for all of the children to have somewhere safe to stay. We are speaking to CHETI about opportunities to continue support these children at home, such as by providing soap and food packages. These conversations are ongoing, and we will be in touch with all sponsors shortly with an update.
Our projects
As the schools are now closed, some of our projects are much more effected than others. Our Menstrual Hygiene Management Workshops with Femme International have been put on hold for now, and the start of our hand washing workshops have been delayed. However, the school closures, and the fact the other work is still permitted, means that we are potentially able to bring forward some construction projects that would otherwise be scheduled for school holiday, such as the construction of three classrooms at CHETI Primary, and starting the construction of the girls toilet block at Mshikamano.
This is complicated by the fact that the exchange rate from pounds to shillings is the worst we’ve ever seen. We budget 5-10% percent contingency when we plan projects, and use a conservative exchange rate that is below the average rate, but even this is not enough. In good news, we had already sent the funds for the second phase of the three One Kind Act classrooms at CHETI Primary, and construction started on Monday.
As a very small charity, we haven’t previously attempted to hedge currency (when you buy it an hold it so you have a certain exchange rate) as we felt this was well beyond our skill set. However it is something we are now considering for the future but it will be a steep learning curve. Maybe you are reading this and are knowledgeable and willing to advise us, if so, please get in touch.
Emergency Hand Washing Appeal
We had always planned to run an extended hand washing project throughout 2020 and 2021, with a focus on reducing illnesses like diarrhoea and typhoid, that affect school attendance and attainment.
We have scaled this project up, and are hoping to be able to bring it forward. We have launched a crowdfunding campaign with a target of £10,305 to let us build sinks with a water supply, provide soap and deliver hygiene training in all our partner schools. We’ve raise £2,314 so far meaning we are able to run the project at Maji Moto Primary.
In the UK
Eleanor and Anna have been working from home from a week and a half now, and our face to face volunteering sessions have moved online too. It’s sad not to be in the wonderful Beehive Lofts and like everyone else we are missing seeing our wonderful volunteers, but we are lucky that because we work UK-Tanzania we were already using tools like slack, google drive and video conferencing that make remote working possible. Our first virtual volunteering session was very well attended, and it was a bonus that several of our London-based volunteers were able to join us for the first time.
Thank you so much to all our volunteers for sticking with us, and being patient as we figure out new ways of working.
Fundraising
There is no two ways about it, coronavirus is going to impact our fundraising significantly. We are stepping back from working on event-based fundraising like Challenges, School Workshops, Craft Fairs and Corporate Events for the time being. If you have creative ideas for virtual fundraising events please contact us!
Instead, we are shifting our focus to our hand washing campaign, grant applications and preparing for the future.
Events and Challenges
The lock down means that many events are being cancelled or postponed. We are going to postpone our Yorkshire Three Peaks challenge event from the 9th of May and are getting in touch with everyone who is registered to try to find a date that works for all participants. If you are already registered, Lost Earth will be sending you new details shortly, and you will all be receiving an email from us too.
Virtual Pub Quiz
In happier news, we're hosting a virtual charity pub quiz! It will be on Thursday 2nd of April at 8pm and we'd love to see you there.
We tested everything out on a set of guinea pig volunteers, and we had lots of fun and are now ready to open this to the general public. There’s a picture round, dingbats, music round as well as the more standard general knowledge.
If you're interested, please sign up on our website and we'll send you all the details. You don't need to be a tech guru to be able to join virtually, we've included all the details.
Thank you for you patience with this slightly longer update. We’ll keep doing them as things change over the next few weeks.
Wishing everyone good health.