Social work in Mwanza

Hello!

I’m a student from Finland studying social work and now I’m here on my internship as a volunteer for Ni Hekima Pekee organization. 

Me and my supervisor Kennedy work in a ward called Butimba. When I first came here I started with registering the deaf and mute kids who aren’t in school. It was a big project because it was difficult to get the names of the deaf and mute kids from the community and it was a lot of children involved.

I started to collect the names and their attendance for all children at Iseni Primary School, at the Unite for deaf and mute kids. After that we started to do family visits to those who weren’t in school to know the reason why. Here we also faced some challenges because we didn’t find some kids, so we literally went looking and asking around for them on the streets where they have lived in hope to find them. Some of the families had moved and shifted schools but there was no documentation about that in school. Some families didn’t afford the school uniforms and school supplies so their children couldn’t therefore go to school. Some children hadn’t even been in school for many years and are now teenagers without a degree.

Kennedy and I have also worked with many other different and individual cases. For example we had one malnourished kid, a two year old girl who only weighed 7,2 kg. We took her to the organization FOREVER ANGELS who helps with this kind of problem. There she got information about nutrition and peanut butter to put in every meal so the kid will gain weight. We also had one kid who was beaten at home so we took her to another organization called KARIBU FOUNDATION TANZANIA in order to help her and get treatment from the hospital and she will stay there a few months until she is better and after that Ni Hekima Pekee will make sure that she can stay at her relative instead. 

Last week we worked with a family Ni Hekima Pekee started with a few years ago. The father is an alcoholic and alone with five children. The oldest girl, 16 years old were sent to Arusha to work as a house girl and the organization has tried to get her from there but without result. On Monday we got information about her and that she was back in Mwanza, so we visited the family, reported this to the chairman and he directed us to the police station. There have we been all week with all the involved ones and we went from there with a good result. The children’s uncle is going to take care of the youngest children and the oldest girl will continue school.

This week we are planning to take a few children to the hospital and check if they have HIV. It’s free to get checked but the children don’t have the opportunity to go there themselves. So sometimes like this they just need a push in the right direction and someone who is taking responsibility and goes with them. We are also doing family visit to discuss two of the deaf and mute teenager’s future plans, help one with starting her new job and make sure she has everything she needs for that, and pay a visit to the tailor and shoemaker for the school uniform.

Sunny greetings from Tanzania!

Elin Kamis

 

Introduction of Josefine's and Terese's work

Hello!

We are two students from Finland named Terese Backlund and Josefine Bjorkfors. We are studying social work and at the moment we are doing our practical training for Ni Hekima Pekee. We are staying in Mwanza for 3 months and so far we have been working here for 7 weeks. We are doing family work in a ward called Lwanhima. The organization has not been working in Lwanhima before we came here, so it is very interesting for us to start to work in a completely new area. We work together with a social worker, Gertruda, and our translator Machimu. 

The first thing we started with when we came here was to find out how many children are not attending school in the 40 most vulnerable families in Lwanhima. The organization got sponsored from an organization in the Netherlands called SKKB with 1500 euro, which is enough to provide school uniforms and material for 50 children. After finding out how many children who are not attending school we organized a day when the families and all the children came to the chairperson’s house to take the measurements in order to be able to make the uniforms and shoes. Then a local tailor and shoemaker made the uniforms and shoes and 2 weeks later we went to the school and met all the families and children again where we gave them the uniforms and material. It was a really good day, to see the children’s faces when they got their uniforms. The parents were also truly grateful about our work.

After making sure the children go to school we started to visit the families and parents. There are 40 families to visit, so it will take some time to meet them all. After meeting all the families we need to decide which families are very vulnerable. We have found out that some families have enough money to get food and provide the children with clothes and the parents have jobs, and some families have a lot of children who they can’t afford to feed. On these 6 weeks we have left we need to focus on the most vulnerable families among these 40. 

We will update again once we have visited all 40 families and when we have decided which families we are going to focus on more. All the families need support and advice, but some families really need our help. We will also be doing follow ups when the children come home from school, to show them our interest in their studies. One thing we agree on is that you can’t just put a uniform on a child and put them in school, you need to show the child and the family that you are interested, and also we need to find out the family situation, if there is something going on in the family that might risk the child of dropping out of school. That is why we do family visits and follow ups. 

Terese and Josefine with our dear friend

From the day we were at the school to hand out the uniforms

For the day we did the measurements

A normal day in Mwanza

We (Samira and Julia) is on our third semester at the Social Work Programme at Mid Sweden University in Östersund. We have now been on our internship in Mwanza, Tanzania for 13 weeks on the organization Ni hekima Pekee. We now have two weeks left to practice, and it is with mixed feelings! 

A common family visits are usually look like so that we meet up with our supervisor Kennedy and then we start going to the families, and usually the walks are a little longer because of the distance, we usually call it The Social walk. :)
A day out in the field of family visits all look different, but last week we had the pleasure to share mattresses to five of our families that the organization supports. The mattresses were a gift and it warms the heart of other people's dedication and benevolence. It was a nice day with lots of laughs and smiles.