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HABARI!
News from
Godparents for Tanzania
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G4TZ is about to hit the
one million dollar mark! |
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We are excited about our year end financial statistics!
· In 2009, we distributed $135,587 in scholarships.
· In 2009, we distributed $29,820 in project grants.
· Since 2004, we have distributed $619,921 in scholarships.
· Since 2004, we have distributed $187,086 in project
grants.
We might be able to hit the $1 million mark this year and certainly next year!
The numbers themselves are not exciting; the number of young lives in Tanzania that have been changed by these numbers is very exciting! Many of our students have already graduated from secondary school and quite a few from university. Tanzania has doctors, nurses, wildlife managers, lawyers, accountants, journalists, geologists and others thanks to the generosity of Godparents for Tanzania sponsors who are making a great difference in the lives of these young people and in the future of their country because all of our university graduates commit to using their skills in Tanzania for a minimum of five years.
Dear G4TZ sponsors, we say Asante Sana! (Thank You!) to one and all and to our great students who work so hard to take advantage of the opportunity you have given them!
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Two spaces still available for Discovery Safari 2010
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Discovery Safaris, the travel program of Godparents for Tanzania, will depart Dulles Int'l Airport on June 23, 2010 for a 12 day in-country safari to visit our friends in Tanzania and see some amazing sights like Mt. Kilimanjaro and Ngorongoro Crater!
We will visit our students, their schools, hospitals and churches as well as go "on safari" to some of the most famous Big Game Parks in the world. Lions, zebras, wildebeest, cheetahs, cape buffalo, hippos, baboons, and countless incredible birds, you name it! Stealthy leopards and rare rhinos if you're lucky! But, best of all, we will get to see our students and build some wonderful relationships with them and our many dear friends in Tanzania.
A highlight of the trip will be the dedication of Hai Technical Training Centre which has been built with substantial support from G4TZ donors. Still another will be the dedication of a new vocational training school building at the Mongai Lutheran Parish made possible by the good people at St. Stephen Lutheran Church in Williamsburg, VA. And, we will visit Door of Hope, a G4TZ project supported by Trinity Ecumenical Parish in Moneta, VA that will allow young Maasai girls to attend school.
Join us this June and July for an extraordinary adventure in Tanzania, East Africa! Sign up soon on our web site or contact the trip leader, Dwayne Westermann at 540.353.6341 (click here to email him). Space is limited! Click 2010 Discovery Safari in the Quick Links column for much more information. Only two seats left! |
"Lucky" |
We call him "Lucky." His baptismal name is Goodluck. He is now a fifth (final) year student at Kilimanjaro Christian Medical College pursuing his M.D. With his excellent grades, he will graduate at the top of his class later this year. Lucky has not reached this point in his life easily. He has pursued an impossible dream.
Lucky comes from a very poor family with a single parent who lives with relatives. He and his mother have no home of their own. He tenaciously struggled through secondary school, borrowing books and begging shillings from relatives to make it to graduation. He was often sent away from school for lack of a uniform and school fees. Yet, his impossible dream was to attend medical school and become a doctor, a dream far out-of-reach given his impoverished circumstances.
Yet, with the help of another G4TZ student who shared his books, computer and friendship, Lucky entered medical college on a partial government loan. He was brought to us by his friend in his third year when he was in danger of dropping out because the loan was inadequate to cover rising school costs. Through some of our very generous sponsors, we were able to provide a scholarship and now Lucky will receive his M.D. in November, his impossible dream soon to be a reality.
Lucky tells us that, not only does he want to serve the people of Tanzania as a physician, he also hopes one day he can build a house for his mother, "maybe just two rooms," and have a place where he can hang his graduation picture, because, he says, "Everyone should have a home where they can hang their graduation picture."
We're proud of you, Lucky!
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How to make a contribution
to G4TZ for free with a Kroger Cares card
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Ask us to send you a Kroger Cares card. For a donation of only $5.00, we will send you the Kroger Cares debit card with a $5.00 credit already loaded. You recharge the card whenever you shop and buy gas at Krogers and G4TZ receives a donation of 5% of whatever amount you loaded on your card. So, you are making a donation to your favorite organization without spending a single cent that you wouldn't have spent otherwise! With hundreds of people loading thousands of dollars on their Kroger Cares cards, our students benefit significantly! Last year, G4TZ received $2720.00 from Kroger Cares., a significant contribution to help keep our organization up and running. One of our supporting congregations is sending a student to college at a cost of over $6,000 per year and they are doing it just from income received from their members who are using Kroger Cares cards. For the minor inconvenience of using your Kroger Cares card (you have to load it at the customer service desk), you can contribute to the work of Godparents for Tanzania. To make it really easy to order your card, click here and go to our Donations page. Under Amount, click Other and insert $5. Under Program Description, select Use where most needed. Under Questions or Comments, say "Kroger Cares Card," and your card will be on its way to you. It will cost an extra $0.15 to use this service, but that's far less than a stamp! Please help us send more kids to school by becoming a Kroger Cares card user. Thanks! | |
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From the President |
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I'm amazed by the statistics in the first story above. We are nearing one million dollars in providing scholarships and educational project support to students in Tanzania! Now, I know I shouldn't be amazed; go ahead, say it, "Oh ye of little faith," but this really does mark something of milestone in our efforts to help poor kids in Tanzania achieve what they could only dream about. See Lucky's story in this issue.
I'll tell you the truth, when we started out helping the first student go to medical school way back when and I found out that would cost $25,000, I couldn't imagine where I was going to come up with that kind of money. I wrote to every friend, doctor and pastor I knew and ask them to help. And, we didn't raise $25,000. We raised $50,000! And we sent two young students to medical school. That was a milestone of sorts, too. It marked the possibility that, if we could do this for these two students, we could do it for more students. And now we have, for a great many more, thanks to the generosity of many sponsors who believe as we do that the most effective, long-term strategy for combating hunger and disease in a developing country is the education of its young people.
When we tell a bright and eager young student who thought their destiny was to farm a small plot of arid land like their parents and live in grinding poverty that they have a scholarship and can go to school, they invariably say, "This is like a miracle to me!" That we are now reaching the million dollar mark in scholarships and project support, that we have full-time staff in the US and in Tanzania and take many people to visit Tanzania annually through Discovery Safaris, well, that is "like a miracle" to me, too.
So, as we approach this million dollar milestone, may I say two things to all those who support Godparents for Tanzania! First, thank you on behalf of all the young people whose lives you have so dramatically changed. Second, let's go for two million!
Mungu awabariki sana! (God bless you all greatly!)
Dwayne J. Westermann, President
Godparents for Tanzania
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Godparents for Tanzania
is a 501(c)(3) public charity
incorporated in the Commonwealth of Virginia
Post: P.O. Box 20221, Roanoke, VA 24018
Voice: 540~353~6341
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