Education, Nutrition, Health and Safety to 60 Kids

Hello to all my dear friends, 

Heroes Acre is a beautiful monument in Windhoek. Unfortunately not many tourists visit the place because it is situated a little outside the city. One has a stunning view of the entire city from there. The children really enjoyed our outing to the monument. It was a moving experience for them to see the graves of their Namibian heroes and freedom fighters whom they study in their history lessons at school. The eternal flame also impressed them. The biggest fun for the little ones was however counting the many steps leading up to the monument. Although they ran up and down several times, the tally was always different, so I cannot tell you how many steps there really are. Naturally,  everyone was hungry after all these steps and a pizza was a must. Many thanks to Jessica’s parents for sponsoring our lunch.

Our new menu is finally up and running and the children have gotten used to it. Fish goes down a lot more easily and vegetables are not such a battle anymore. We are still trying to camouflage the boiled cabbage, but the peas are chewed and swallowed and not just picked out of the rice one by one. It was a huge learning curve for our cook as well because she was used to measuring quantities in terms of cups and numbers. For one recipe we need 12 to 31 potatoes, which always amounts to approximately 3 kg. We need 21 cups of rice, but this is not an amount which I can buy at the supermarket and which would make my shopping easy. But now that we have a kitchen scale our cook is more confident and has learnt how many grams there are in a Kilogram.

Unfortunately we have to deal with a lot of hardship and sorrow in our work.

The children come from the poorest of the poor. They not only sleep on a thin blanket on the floor or come from a home where there is absolutely no food available, they are often born into truly painful circumstances. Mother raped at the age of twelve/ the father (the perpetrator) commits suicide/ a child is born / grandmother cares for her abused daughter and grandchild/ she cannot make ends meet/ mother has negative feelings towards the child …..

A father loses his wife at the birth of their sixth child in hospital/ baby remains in hospital because no mother’s milk is available here/ baby experiences nutritional problems/ father works in another town because he has to support 5 other children/ comes home at the end of the month/ the other children stay with relatives/ baby dies after 2 months in hospital ….

A two-year-old is taken in by an already impoverished family because its own siblings have all died of hunger and malnutrition/ child has learning problems/ can’t read or write at the age of 12/ seldom speaks/ has relationship problems with other children ….

We try to help where we can, but it isn’t always easy.

We had two exciting visits:

2017 Mandela Washington Fellowship for Young African Leaders (MWF) in the United States.

Established by Barack Obama, every African country selects young people for leadership training in the US. These young leaders must then give back something to their people at home and we at Mammadu were the ones whom they chose to visit! It was a truly beautiful and inspiring day and I am happy to know that we have such young fine Namibians who are committed to care for others. We planted an orange tree in memory of their visit to Mammadu.

Launched in 2014, MWF is the flagship programme of former President Barack Obama’s Young African Leader Initiative (YALI), which brings together 1,000 young leaders from Sub-Saharan Africa to the United States and empowers them through leadership training, academic coursework, and networking. The Young leaders will spend six weeks at top U.S. colleges or universities that will take them through an intensive programme in one of three tracks: Business and Entrepreneurship, Civic Leadership, and Public Management.  The Fellowship also provides support for professional development and mentoring after participants return home. Next week, these participants are set to fly off to the United States. 

We also had a visit by the final year high school students. They were really nice to our kids. Their mission was to teach our kids how important it is to have good resolutions, to be honest and always try to do one’s best and not be distracted by unnecessary things.

A smile is the best make-up and everyone can afford it. You do not need lipstick and mascara for that!

Our women’s group attended the Expo.

It was a great experience for our mothers and they did not mind the long working hours. Thanks to Gondwana, a chain of tourist lodges, we were able to have our own stand at the exhibition center. Our turn-over was relatively good but it was more important for us to become better known and to show-case our products. We received a large order for 150 place mats after the fair. I cannot tell you how happy the mothers were. Each one earnt quite a large sum of money.

Dear reader, you too can send me your own order for these place mats and I will certainly find a way to get them to you.

Augusto smiles again!

At last! Augusto is much better. For the last couple of weeks he was happy and light-hearted when I picked him up at the school’s residence on Fridays. He always tells me what happened during the past week. He has a new Physics teacher whom he adores and apparently they are enjoying baking cakes with the new female cook. He also gets along well with his roommate and finally has some fun at school. When we arrive back at Mammadu even our volunteers get a little kiss. I am so relieved, he truly deserves this. So, let’s hold thumbs that it stays that way. It was his birthday on 4th August and of course we had good reason to celebrate it. And on Saturday his school held their trimester festival.

As always I want to thank each and everyone for all your help and support. Our Mammadu family is getting bigger and bigger here as well as in Europe and it is good to know that you are there for us. 

A big hug from all of us.

During our first trimester we concentrated on Maths, especially the multiplication tables! Yes, believe it or not we are still battling with them. It is ununderstandable why it is so difficult for the learners. We practiced them day-in and day-out. I would love to screw open the child’s head to see what is going on in there when the answer to 7x8 is just not forthcoming. Consequently I decided to divide the children into groups and to go shopping with them for fruit and vegetables for Mammadu. There are a total of 63 children at Mammadu, each gets an apple 3 times a week. So, how many packets of apples must I buy if each packet has 12 apples. And how much must I pay if each packet costs 29.99 NAD? That can’t be difficult. The winners received an ice-cream, the losers went away empty handed. This did the trick! One group solved the problem perfectly. And they were so happy that they handled my private shopping list too, and even the cash payment and the change went without a hitch. Of course the losers will get another chance. Mami wants all of them to have an ice-cream too.

The medical check-ups revealed the following unmistakeable results:

1. Almost all the children are basically malnourished.
2. Most have dental problems.

We subsequently called all the families for a meeting. The fact that all except two families actually attended was an overwhelming success. We tried to explain to them, which foods are nourishing and which are not. Most were aware of it but costs often determined the quality of food they could afford. In short: HEALTHY = EXPENSIVE, UNHEALTHY = CHEAP. Dental problems are obviously aggravated by unhealthy foodstuffs: eating lots and lots of sugar together with poor dental hygiene.

At Mammadu we are now busy changing our meals. More fish, at least twice a week, more vegetables, with seeds and nuts added to the breakfast menu. This of course also presents us with two additional problems. The meals are more expensive and place a burden on Mammadu’s budget and, in addition, this type of food is not well liked by the kids. Very few of them know and like fish, and show me a child that loves vegetables! Seeds and nuts are picked out painstakingly and some of them spend hours over their fish until they have managed to swallow it.

I do hope the situation will improve over time. It is after all in the children’s best interest.

We also asked the families to see to it that the children brush their teeth at home, and not only at Mammadu, even if there is no toothpaste. Hopefully the parents will monitor this.

We have school holidays now and the children received reports for the first trimester. Augusto is simply brilliant; he got top marks for all his subjects. On the whole I am quite satisfied with the reports. For sure, some of them can put in more effort, which I hope they will do. Afrikaans language is still a weak point and, strangely enough, the children also have problems with Geography. Our volunteers are busy practicing the school work with the children so that not all is forgotten when school starts again. But there is still time for some outings too.

The highlight of the vacation is however a dance workshop. Every day last week the kids had a lesson by professional dance instructors. The kids were so excited and enthusiastic. They already started practicing the steps and exercises of the previous day before 8 in the morning! The final show was last Saturday. The preparations and the atmosphere were simply electric. On Saturday 13th May we were invited to the ADS International Food and Crafts Bazaar in the FNCC where the children performed the dance once again. Our women also had a stand there for their baskets, handbags made from recycled materials and much more. We also operated for the first time our Candy Cotton machine, with a huge huge success.

Mammadu also exhibits its project and products at the Tourism Expo in Windhoek from 31. May to 3. June. Please visit us in large numbers.

Please accept my apologies as we missed to send you our wishes for the latest festivities, like Easter and Mothers day. We did not forget, it’s just there was no time for me to write the news letter on time.

As always I want to thank each and everyone for all your help and support. Our Mammadu family is getting bigger and bigger here as well as in Europe and it is good to know that you are there for us. 

A big hug from all of us.