The Mufindi Highlands Orphanage Project will expand on the work already done by the Fox family and local villagers to deal with the problems caused by the growing number of orphans in the Mufindi District of Tanzania.

The Project will harness local expertise and international private funding to embark on a three year program to build an orphanage/school/clinic complex, provide initial sustenance and care for sixty or more orphans, develop future self-funding mechanisms, provide assistance to people now caring for orphans in their homes, and conduct classes on HIV/AIDS awareness and protection for young adults in local villages.

The new orphanage will care for a small number of children with HIV/AIDS and other orphans without family or foster homes. Both infected, and not infected, children will be included in the Mufindi Highlands Orphanage program.

Ground breaking for the orphanage

The orphanage will provide basic needs for children such as housing, food, and clothing. The orphanage will also provide the children with vocational training and a kindergarten for the under-fives.

Local government schools will provide primary and secondary education. It is approximately a twenty-minute walk from the orphanage site to Igoda village center, and a forty-minute walk to the local school.

The orphanage will be responsible for meeting the children's medical needs, supporting them with counseling, and giving them emotional and spiritual stability. Medical, educational, emotional and spiritual assistance will also be given to orphans who are able to stay with their relatives in the villages.

US$220,000 will be needed to build six fully furnished houses. Each house will accommodate a maximum of 12 children plus a "housemother". There will be one house for volunteer staff and one house for the matron/supervisor. A main building will include a dispensary, a vocational school, a kindergarten for pre-primary school children, and a social area.

Making adobe bricks for the orphanage

There will be a vegetable plot to provide food, and a hydro-electricity dam, built at the bottom of the valley, to create a lake and provide water, fishing, and electricity. The orphanage will need a tractor and other basic agricultural equipment to grow maize, which is the staple food of Tanzania, and a vehicle for supplies and mobility. A driver/handyman will work there fulltime and will also need living accommodations-- perhaps in the main building to provide security. Also, a football pitch and netball/basketball area will be needed for sports activities.

Another US$80,000 will be required for operational running costs for a start-up period of three years. This money will be used for wages for the matron, six "mothers", and the driver/handyman, initial food and medicine, tractor and vehicle fuel and maintenance, building maintenance, landscaping, roads and the like. Money will also be needed for soap and laundry expenses, bedding and clothing.

"Village orphan support" will cover costs for extension services provided to those orphans who are able to remain with relatives in their extended family or with village members who feel compelled to provide shelter and care for orphans within their family unit. The orphans and the family and friends that make this choice will be provided with some of the services and support provided to the children living in the orphanage such as medical care, medications, food, clothing, education, vocational and life skills, and emotional and spiritual support. Making this option available through the orphanage project will increase the overall number of orphans receiving services from this project. Keeping these children in home environments in the villages, would reduce the problem of over capacity in the orphanage.

A couple of youngsters at the orphanage

After the initial three-year start-up period, annual operational costs should decrease as the orphanage begins supplying its own homegrown food. Other needed funds will be raised from farm revenues, the making of arts & crafts, and solicited local donations.

The Mufindi Highlands Orphanage Project should be completed in three (3) years` time providing donations keep pace with progress on the ground. In order to help raise funds in the United States and provide the funds to the Project as they are needed, the non-profit corporation "Mufindi Orphans" was formed and registered in Oregon State and is now actively soliciting funds for the Project. Donations made will be tax deductible in the USA.

In addition, the Foxes will continue to solicit funds from sources in Tanzania and in the United Kingdom. If those who wish to donate are Americans, they will be asked to send their gifts to "Mufindi Orphans, Inc." in the USA so they may qualify for US tax deductions on donations made.

The Foxes acknowledge the fact that there are about 15 other villages in close proximity to Igoda village and the Fox farm that will not receive help from this Project. Hopefully, following the success of this Project, the Tanzanian government will be ready to embark on an extensive orphanage construction program and may be able to use the experience gained by this Project to help plan and implement their program.