Sunday Offerings
Mwangaza Foundation
November 2009 recipient
How you can help
Linda Hines, Board Chair from the Mwangaza Foundation, will be available between services in the Narthex on November 1. She will have more information and applications for sponsoring an orphan, many of whom were born with HIV/AIDS. All money we collect during the service will provide food, clothing, medicine, and schooling for the children.
One orphan's story
Majuto was born in 2001 and is an only child. When he was four months old his mother died, and he was sent to an uncle so his step-aunt could nurse him. His father died shortly after that, and when he was two his uncle died. He was sent to his grandmother who was very old, so he had to be cared for by her neighbors.
In 2004 SWACO (Songea Women and Children’s Organization) was asked to admit him in the temporary orphanage. He was very scared, infested with lice and parasites, and suffering from lack of nutrition. Now he is healthy, doing well in school, and likes to build things and draw pictures.
Majuto is only one of 71 orphans being cared for by SWACO, the non-profit orphanage in Songea, Tanzania which was founded in 1999 and whose mission is to care for children at risk and to improve the health and well being of people in the surrounding area.
Mwangaza Foundation begins
In 2007 the local grassroots non-profit Mwangaza Foundation registered in the United States, and in June 2008 it began providing all financial support for care and schooling of the SWACO children and promised to build an orphanage. Until the facility is complete, the children are living in foster homes.
Engineers without Borders
A Seattle architectural firm and a team from Engineers Without Borders, Puget Sound are providing pro bono work designing and building an orphanage, solar water well, and solar lighting and hot water systems. Twenty-five acres have been purchased to raise crops and animals to feed the orphans, so they can become self sufficient.
Would you like to nominate a charity?
Fill out a nomination form and place it in the Sunday Offerings mailbox.