Working together to empower women, families, and communities by offering innovative programs that overcome obstacles to families staying together.
sponsor a child in need
We work with families and communities to give every child under five in Tanzania the opportunity to reach their full potential, focusing on the first thousand days of life. One child at a time, one family at a time we can support Tanzanians as they increase their productive potential.
Maisha Matters empowers Tanzanian families to care for their children. We give initial life-saving support that will permanently allow them to move themselves out of poverty. Can you imagine what the Tanzanian people are capable of once they have the opportunity to a complete education and full health?
We believe every child in Tanzania should have an equitable chance to survive and thrive in a nurturing family environment. This would not be possible without supporters like you. We can and we hope you will join us in being a part of Tanzania's bright future!
Tanzania scored just 0.40 on the World Bank's Human Capital Index (HCI), indicating that a child born in Tanzania in 2017 (the year in which the HCI data was collected) would be expected to reach just 40 percent of what her productive potential would have been had she enjoyed a complete education and full health. Tanzania's HCI score places it in the bottom 35 countries worldwide, underscoring the urgent need to boost spending on the social sectors.
Source: World Bank, Tanzania Economic Update, Issue 18
Through our programs we believe we can give children in Tanzania, under the age of five, what they need to reach their full potential.
Some of our children attend our free ECDC while others attend the local government school in their special needs program. We rely on sponsors to keep this amazing resource open to the community.
Early Childhood Care and Development (ECCD) programs help to ensure that young children fulfill their right to healthy development and education, and ultimately assist them in reaching their full potential. There is mounting evidence from around the world demonstrating that the first years of life are critical for child development in those early years that children shape cognitive social and language skills, as well as life-long learning.
We currently have one ECCD center open. We were forced to shut down two centers during the Covid-19 pandemic. Our current ECCD center is a safe, learning haven for thirty vulnerable children and five children with special needs. We rely on sponsors to cover the costs of running this center. Our goal is to welcome thirty more vulnerable children into the ECCD once we can relocate our offices, giving our campus enough room for the additional children. This will have a huge impact on the children as well as the community.
The keys to ending the cycle of poverty is through early intervention which means a well rounded childhood education at school and at home. This includes a healthy, balanced diet, and feeling safe in a nurturing environment. We currently hold training courses that are open to parents, the community, early childhood education professionals, and nannies. We plan to expand this program so that we can invite ECD professionals from around Tanzania to continue their training and ensure children in their care are getting the ECCD that they need. This will have a huge impact on the population of Tanzania as a whole.
Every two weeks women and children travel from all over the Arusha region to attend our malnutrition clinics. These children are severely malnourished and are referred to us from hospitals, clinics, social welfare, local government officials, and individuals who know Walk in Love's work. Children receive life saving formula milk or peanut butter depending on age and health at the time, as well as a health check and food for the entire family. The caregiver will also attend a training session covering topics such as nutrition, ECD, hygiene, sanitation, breastfeeding, how to prepare formula milk, first aid, HIV, and malaria education etc.* If the child has not seen a doctor, we send them to the hospital immediately. We are not medical and require all children to be cleared by a doctor before starting our malnutrition program. Children will stay in this program for up to one year.
From our years of experience working with severely malnourished children, we have learned that not only do they need help but the hospitals need support in treating children with severe acute malnutrition (SAM). Children with SAM need to be treated for SAM in a very particular way. Children can die if given regular food and children with SAM have lowered immune systems. They are very weak and very vulnerable and have to be taken care of correctly or could possibly die if not treated correctly, even at the hospital. Even the best hospitals in Tanzania are not equipped to treat children with SAM, the staff are not adequately trained and even if they are, they do not have the therapeutic foods, vitamins, minerals and medicine the children need to survive. This means that most children who arrive at the hospital with SAM, do not get the treatment they need which is why children are referred to Walk in Love. Walk in Love wants to help the hospitals so that they can treat children with SAM. This will have a huge impact on the country if we are successful in partnering. We are currently working with two hospitals in the Arusha region, both with very high instances of SAM among the under 5 age group.
Maisha Matters is a program that includes our malnutrition clinic, training, and business start up. It is a program that was developed to break the cycle of poverty one family at a time. We start with a malnourished child and after many counseling sessions, health checks, training courses, and eventually a business start up so that women and children can graduate from our program being independent. However, many children in our Maisha Matters program and our Malnutrition clinics are referred to Walk in Love because their mothers have passed away, and formula milk is too expensive for families to buy. The babies quickly become malnourished and need the formula milk to survive and thrive. You might ask your self why all of the families aren't in our Maisha Matters program? The answer is that it is simply not sustainable for families living too far away from the program.
Founder
Creative Director
Market Center, Cook
Market Center, Cleaner
Kisongo Center/Market Center, Guard/Gardener
Market Center, Nanny
Kisongo Center, Nanny
Kisongo Center, Cook/Manager
Maisha Matters, Social Worker
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