Moshi, TZ – Tupendane Garden Shop Year in Review – 2014
2014 Achievements
Family Gardens Built: 83
School Breakfast Served: 368,988
School Kitchens Built: 1
School Toilets Built: 1
School Water Connections: 3
Volunteer Groups Hosted: 2
The Tupendane Garden Shop had a busy and productive 2014. The organization remained focused on helping children grow up healthy, educated, and trained to earn an income by improving food self-reliance, school WASH infrastructure, and local economies.
The garden shop built 83 new gardens in 2014, bringing the total number of gardens built to 114. In addition to expanding, the team was also able to improve the quality of gardens in the program throughout the year. It is exciting to see so many families learning best-practices and improving their gardens with focused assistance from the Tupendane team.
Deo accepting a gift of gratitude from students at Rau River Primary School.
The Tupendane Garden Shop continued to focus on helping primary schools in the Kahe area as well. In 2014 the team built a new toilet at Rau River Primary School, a new kitchen at Maendeleo Primary School, and helped three other primary schools install clean water connections. The School WASH Infrastructure projects have proven to have a positive impact on student performance by improving health, reducing absenteeism due to illness, and allowing children to focus on learning. School breakfast also plays an important role in student achievement. In 2014 Tupendane provided 368,988 breakfast meals to primary school students.
Volunteers digging the foundation for the new Rau River Primary School toilet.
In addition to improving lives for families in Kahe, Tupendane also helped build awareness and understanding of life in Tanzania for students from Germany and the United States. Tupendane hosted one volunteer group of 16 students and educators from Rollins College, and another group of high school students from Germany. Both groups enjoyed the opportunity to learn about life in a different country and interact with their Tanzanian peers.
Moving into 2015, Tupendane is looking forward to continuing to help children grow up healthy, educated, and trained to earn an income. The team hopes to continue expanding the FAITH Organic Vegetable Gardening program, help families access small-business loans, and ensure primary school students have the support they need to do well in school.