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 | Hope through Education
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HABARI!
News from
Godparents for Tanzania
November-December, 2010
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Discovery Safari 2011
Reservations Closing January 15
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 | | Our 2010 Discovery Safari Group |
Our 2011 Discovery Safari to Tanzania is scheduled for July 6-21.
Our trips are intended for those interested in more than just a wildife safari for tourists. Here is an opportunity to build relationships with new friends half a world away and to learn what it means to live in a developing country.
But part of the excitement also includes two wild game safaris to Tarangire National Park and Ngorongoro Crater for close up encounters with Tanzania's incredible wildlife.
Reservations are being accepted until January 15
and may be made by going to our website (link at right) and clicking on Discovery Safars, or by calling 540.353.6341. After visiting our website, you may also call this number for additional information.
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Annual student reports to sponsors are on the way | 
We know all of our sponsors are eager to hear about how their student is doing. We are still processing our interviews and hope to get reports out to sponsors as soon as possible. Please bear with us and watch for student reports coming soon.
If you have not heard otherwise, please be assured your student is progressing well. We do encourage sponsors who have not already done so to please send in your 2010-2011 scholarship gift as soon as possible. The full scholarship amount for the new academic year has increased modestly to $540.00 (or $45.00/month) due to increasing school costs in Tanzania. |
Clinical Officers Training Fund established
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 | | G4TZ Clinical Officer David Sabas with his sponosr, Gail Bolt. |
Under the leadership of our newest Board of Directors member, Jessica Utt of Richmond, VA, we have establised the Clinical Officers Training Fund (COTF). A Clinical Officer is a midlevel health care provider similar to Physician Assistants and Nurse Practitioners in the United States. After completing a three-year advanced degree program, they are able to begin providing health care to a much needed Tanzanian population where, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), there is on average only 0.1 physicians per 10,000 people. (there are 27 physicians per 10,000 people in the US). Jessica Utt, a Physicians Assistant, comments, "By investing in these students we are investing in the lives of countless Tanzanians who, with the help of these future CO's, will lead healthier more productive lives. G4TZ has currently graduated two Clinical Officers with two others in training. To learn more about our new Clinical Officers Training Fund, visit the G4TZ website. To help support the training of a Clinical Officer, click the Donate Now button below which will take you to the online donation page on the G4TZ website. |
Year-end tax statement provided upon request
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In our effort to be good stewards of your gifts, year-end tax statements are sent only upon request. Donations are acknowledged for tax purposes upon receipt. But, if you would like to receive a year-end statement, we are glad to provide it. Just send an email to kwestermann@godparents4tz.org. A statement will be sent to you promptly after the first of the year.
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What education means to me
by Thomas Rausen Massawe | 
In November, I will receive my Diploma in Wildlife Management and soon I will be able to begin my Bachelors Degree in Wildlife Management. This is like a dream come true for me because for most Tanzanians this is almost impossible without assistance from someone who wants to help us improve our lives.
In my family, we are two boys and one girl. We lived in the village of Machame in a small house that was not enough space for all of us to sleep which also included my grandmother who has now died. My father died when I was very young, so it was only my mother who was trying her level best to keep all of us with daily food and in school by working at a small clinic and farming. Then my older brother, Daniel, got a scholarship from Godparents for Tanzania for secondary school and we thought there is some hope for all of us to continue in school. Later my sister, Siana, and I also received scholarships and now my brother is a doctor, my young sister has her Certificate in Accounting and I am starting my Bachelors program. And, we have been able to build a much better house.
If we had not got the scholarships from Godparents, then we would probably be like most other families in Machame, just working in the field to raise enough food to survive from day to day. Life for most families in Tanzania is very tough, but we know that getting an education is the main way we can escape and have a better life.
Because I am getting education, it means also more beyond our family. It means I can help our country of Tanzania as well. Tanzania has great natural resources especially animals that many people like to come on safari to see. But we have to conserve our wildlife carefully or it will soon be gone. I am very happy that I will be able to help do this for my country and also to make a good income so one day I will have a house and family of my own. This is what education means to me. It means a whole new life.
So, my life is much different than without an education and we are really thankful to God and to our sponsors for helping us. Also my goal after starting in a job is to also sponsor a student to go to school because there are so many kids in our village of Machame who won't have a chance at a better life unless someone helps them like Godparents helped me and my family.
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"Imani, Tumaini, Upendo"
"Faith, Hope, Love" - A new G4TZ video
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Click here to visit the G4TZ YouTube Channel and see our latest video featuring the 70 voice Agape Lutheran Junior Seminary high school choir singing a song written especially for Godparents for Tanzania by our president, Dwayne Westermann, with music composed by Aaron Garber of Salem, VA.
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From the President
|  Have a close look at this picture. I took it this past July on a trip in the bush where these kids mugged for the camera because they wanted to see their picture. For most of them, it was the first time they had ever seen their pictures!
What do you see when you look at this picture? Many people will see only terribly poor children in the third world who don't stand a chance and are begging for charity. But look more closely; ignore the ragged clothes and look at their faces. Can you pick out the one who wants to be a teacher? How about the one who wants to be a doctor or clinical officer, or the one who would like to work in wildlife management? They all want to be something, to be someone of whom they, themselves, and their families can be proud, someone who will help lift their parents and their siblings from the poverty that, right now, has them trapped into being only terribly poor children the world should pity. But they are more than that! They have hopes and dreams just like our kids.
And, they are smart, smart enough to know that there is only one way those hopes and dreams can ever come true. So, more than anything right now, these kids are hoping they get the chance to go to school. Most of them should be in primary school right now, but their parents can't afford it. Secondary school is like a distant dream. And, college? They don't even know yet that there is such a thing as college; but, if they did, they would hope for that, too.
To look at this ragamuffin band, you would not think they would have what President Obama has called, "the audacity of hope," but they do. These are not the faces of children who lack hope. What they lack is someone to start them on their way.
That's all they need and that's what we can give them.
Mungu awabariki na Heri ya Krismas sana! (Swahili for "God bless you all and a very Merry Christmas!")
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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