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| Wamato founder Mrs Basila Chuwa |
Basila Chuwa and her family live in the posh Mbezi Beach
suburb in Dar es Salaam.
Surrounding their luxurious
house is a mixture of lavish properties
and shacks made of wood, iron
sheets and any other odd pieces of
useful rubble.
The shacks are occupied by migrant
families, mostly from southern and central
rural areas, who guard chic mansions
that are still under construction.
A majority of young boys and girls
from the poor families in the high-class
suburb spend most part of the day
helping their parents on the construction
sites.
Some of them have become herders,
keeping an eye on their employers'
cattle and goats to supplement their
parents� meagre earnings.
However, a majority of them have
formed part of a family of poor children
brought together by Mrs Chuwa, and
receiving almost free education at her
charity school.
Mrs Chuwa runs Wakina Mama Na
Watoto (Wamato), registered as a trust
fund in 1999 to secure education for
poor children in the suburb.
"It is a calling that I had way back
in 1995, to help these young boys and
girls around our residence by providing
them with education," she says.
According to her, most of the children
were loitering in the streets, others
confined to domestic chores, while
a significant number tended cattle and
goats.
"They were leading miserable lives
on the streets, unaware of what the
future holds for them, but I asked
myself, 'Shouldn't they be in school
just like my children?"she remarks,
sentimentally.
Apparently, most owners of the
properties where the children�s parents
are working do not provide any financial
support to the families, besides
allowing them to build shacks at their
premises without having to paying
rent.
Though some parents work as parttime
general hand labourers in the suburb,
the wages they get are not enough
to send their kids to school and at the
same time feed their families for a
whole month.
Mrs Chuwa says at one time she
attempted to sensitise some of the
property owners and her neighbours
to the plight of the poor kids but her
efforts hit a brick wall, forcing her to
go it alone with the support of her husband
and daughters.
But her work did not go unnoticed for
a very long time. In 2001, an Ethiopian
who was working with the Christian
Children�s Fund of Canada (CCFC) -
Gabriel Athanas - showed interest in
supporting her initiative.
"Someone must have talked to
him about what we were doing, and
we felt honoured to work with him,"
she says.
Athanas linked her with the
Canadian donor institution, and in no
time she received funds to build the
school inside her compound.
The South African embassy in Dar es
Salaam also volunteered to build one
classroom for the school.
As she puts it, her trust fund has
since gone beyond providing education
to the children but also seeks to
improve the social and economic well
being of poor families, orphans and
women living in Mbezi Beach and surrounding
communities.
The majority of her beneficiaries
are from Rungwe, Maguruwe and
Nyamulenge areas in the suburb.
Initially, after failing to convince
other people to support her initiative,
Mrs Chuwa says she decided to
rent a room at the nearby Tanzania
Assemblies of God (TAG) church,
which she turned into a pre-school.
"It started 30 students, most of
them above 12 years, and each paying
only Sh20,000 a month," she says.
Today, the school, which started
with only two teachers who were paid
by her husband Dr Chuwa, helps 600
children, some of them malnourished,
hence are also provided with food.
Her trust fund is run by a team
that is responsible for, among other
things, sourcing donor funds for the
beneficiaries of her initiative.
Mrs Chuwa dismissed allegations
that she and her husband were using
the plight of children to obtain donors
funds, which they divert to personal
use.
"That is not true at all, I have given
myself to the community, I don't earn a
single penny from this," she remarks.
She explains that her team prepares
profiles of beneficiaries, which they
send to their donors in Canada.
"Our sponsors send money to the children's
families or their guardians. From the
parents, the school gets only Sh500."
According to her, their Canadian
donors give the school at least $13,853
(about Sh18 million) a month to buy
books and stationery.
"We are committed to our cause,
that is, helping the community around
us, not making profits as some people
would want others to believe," she
says, adding that the sponsors regularly
contact the beneficiaries, and sometimes
pay them frequent visits.
Among the children at the school
are those whose parents died of HIV/
Aids and others coming from failed
marriages.
One of the beneficiaries, Magdalena
Hasara, a 40-year-old grandmother
staying in one of the shacks in the area,
says she ekes out a living from crushing
stones and selling them to people
building houses.
Hasara, who suffers from pneumonia,
looks after five children, two of
them granddaughters whose father
abandoned them after their mother
died of HIV/Aids in 2007.
The family is now receiving help from
the Canadian donors through Wamata.
But they have another big problem: the
owner of the property on which they
built their shack has sold place, and
have told them to leave.
Mrs Chuwa says although Hasara's
granddaughters are HIV negative, there
are many children at the school who
were infected with the deadly virus.
"We do not know the exact number.
But we have, for example, a 29-yearold,
Mage Augustino who was apparently
infected last year. He has since
been receiving help from the trust
fund," she notes.
Another orphan, Devotha Ngigimba,
11, has been receiving from the fund
since 2002 when her father died after
falling from a tree.
She was reportedly picked from the
streets following the tragedy, after her
mother, a fruit vendor, failed to provide
for her education.
As you talk to her, Mrs Chuwa
doesn't give the impression of an overburdened
woman, but she tells you it's
no joke dealing with the kind of problems
she is trying to solve.
"We have a lot problems, sadly most
of them come from the children's parents
who though they want help draw
us back because of their traditional
beliefs," she remarks.
Most of the parents, she says, from
Makonde and Gogo tribes of southern
and central Tanzania, respectively, do
not appreciate the value of education.
"Some of them allow their children
to skip classes, and in worst cases
there are others who are marrying their
children at very tender ages," says the
philanthropist.
However, she says despite these
challenges her husband is her pillar of
strength, and together, they have vowed
to continue helping the children.
