Author: Katharine

On 29 December 2019, Eddy and Chantal together with their son Jan and two friends from Belgium visited us again and brought food (rice, beans, fruit) for our children and money which will be used to replace the tiles of the boys dormitory. They were able to do so with help from family, colleagues and friends.

But again there is somebody they especially want to mention. You probably remember the stories of Siebe and Lotte, children of a colleague of Chantal who collected money for the Amani orphanage. Now their younger sister, Meike, decided to do the same.

It is the fourth child and the third in this family who did their utmost best to help supporting the Amani orphanage. Like her older sister and brother she took great pride in saving money by doing small tasks at family or friends and made herself more aware of the life of the children in Tanzania by using less water or by reducing the time she played on the computer. She mowed the grass and went to school by bicycle instead of being brought by car and baked home-made cakes and sold these together with some things of her personal belongings all in order to save money.

In doing so she bested her brother and was able to collect € 300. She was especially proud of this result. Therefore we want to tell her “thank you very much Meike!”

Amani’s youngest supporters are the same age as our children themselves!

Meet Lieselore!

Lieselore is only 7 years old. She fundraised € 210 (Euro) by making and selling bookmarks, keyrings, cookies and biscuits. She even donated all her allowance from household chores.

Lieselore’s incredible donation helped us do some much needed repairs at Amani. Her generous gift funded tiling the boy’s dormitory. This ensures our kid’s home is easy to keep clean and hygienic, even in the rainy season!

Thank you Lieselore!

On behalf of Amani Children’s Home and Amani foundation team, I would like to thank your contribution for building the wall with the gate, buying mattresses, painting dormitories, supplying water to all building in the center, putting tiles in girl’s dormitory, building a place for keeping cow grasses, refilling the fire extinguisher, bed covers, new stove (10 – 25litres), buy new beds, new tables and chairs for dining hall and new mosquito nets.

Your support helps us continue in our mission and assist our kids in our center.

The generous support of individuals like you makes it possible for our organization to exist and to make Amani a great place to live.

We are delighted to announce that this year Ms Edna Lyatuu Hogan who resides in Dublin will be running the VHI Flora Women Mini Marathon again to raise money for our orphanage centre and other social enterprises in Tanzania.

Edna has been a great supporter of Amani orphanage for many years and she has done a lot for the centre-from donating computers, school essentials for our kids, food and money. To us she is a mother to our orphans, a sister to our volunteers and a friend to us all here.

Please join Edna at this year’s marathon and help her raise the much needed funds for our children and other charitable projects that she is very passionate about.

Go Edna-we love you-you can do it,

With so much love  from all the children and staff at Amani Children Home.

As the new year begins, we’d like to take a moment to reflect on some of the generosity of the past year. Our 2016 archive is filled with stories of donations and projects that make it possible for Amani to exist. Among them, we are grateful for the continued support of Eddy, Chantal and Siebe Verhoeven who contributed doors and windows to our dormitories and establish electrical infrastructure for our classrooms, built by John McCauley. A more recent donation helped us install more electricity, provided food for our kids and got our motorcar (“called a tok-tok”) up and running again! This way we can drive in supplies, saving time and energy. Thank you to the Verhoevens, and all the incredible people who helped make 2016 a great year. We’re excited to continue our work as we ring in 2017. Amani would not be here were it not for the kindness of our international sponsors.

Please note:

We love to feature stories of projects and donors on our website. However, it can take time to post updates as we are all volunteer staff with many responsibilities.

If you would like your story featured, please email us information about your project! When donors and volunteers send us photos and articles we are very excited to publish them. Not every donor wants to be acknowledged publicly, so we rely on your approaching us or completing our forms for documentation.

We’d like to celebrate the long-time contribution of two of our donors, Richard and Mable Seymour, by featuring a write up in their own words.

“Our Involvement with Amani Orphanage In Tanzania, Africa.”

We visited Amani Orphanage on April 11, 2013 while on tour of Kenya and Tanzania with Vantage Travel. Our tour director was Seif Mohamed. Seif asked the group on the tour if they would like to visit an orphanage and all agreed to do so.

While there, we met Amiri Adamu and others. While taking a tour of the then-current facilities, I noticed a large black water tank laying on the ground and that caused an inquiry. We had see  the new showers and toilets, but were told they did not have water. Also, we were told that they did not have the funds to erect the water tank on a tower so that the water from the tank could be piped into the toilets, showers and wash basins.

Upon getting home, I worked with Seif Mohamed & Amiri Adumu to get an estimate for the cost to build a tower, erect the tank on the tower and pipe water into the showers, toilets and wash basins. That began our more deep involvement with Amani Orphanage. This first project raised money from a number of people in our community and church to buy the materials for erecting the tower, placing the tank on the tower and piping the water to the showers, toilets and wash basins.

Another project helped to purchase a number of metal beds with mattresses.

One of the key projects that came next was the “canal” and dry well to dispose of “dirty water”.

Another project that was water related was the purchase and installation of a pump motor to bring water from the community well to the water tank.

Upon making a photographic presentation at our Church which included pictures of the orphanage, one of the ladies in charge of the Knitting Group suggested that they could make knitted blankets for each of the 38 kids in the orphanage. That launched a knitting project which actually exceeded the 38 blankets for the kids. The ladies made various sizes of blankets including several adult sized blankets.

Ladies participating in the blanket knitting project were:

Noreen Radke, Lois Ostling, Fran Schiel, Terry Froelich, Pat Prauda, Ann DeFeo, Aloha Hicks, Lorraine Usten, Barbara Humphry, Marianna Sherman, & Mable Seymour

Many donations have been made for purchase of food and other supplies for the orphanage.

Eleanor and Craig Hibben, Kathy Martin, Barbara Knappa, Sylvia and Ken LaChapelle, Matty and Gary Barber, Linda and Bruce Ohlinger, Seif Mohamed

Education Commission of First Presbyterian,  Church of Yorktown, NY

Eddy and Chantal Verhoeven are long-time volunteers who return to Amani again and again to donate their time, financial support and energy to our children. They visited again this November and were able to fund all of the windows and the two outside doors of the new dormitory and even some food for the children. They also had a special story to share, which shows that children around the word can truly make a difference:

“This November we visited Amani again to support the children of the orphanage.

This year the people of Amani are building two new dormitories and we were able to sponsor the windows and the outer doors of this building.

We want to thank  all of our friends and family who donated generously for this.

But there is somebody we especially want to mention:

In our search  for funding, we got help from Siebe,  a twelve year old boy who, before making his transition to secondary school, decided to devote himself to charity and to collect money for the Amani orphanage.  During several months he saved money by doing small tasks at family or friends like washing cars and cutting grass. He also made himself more aware of the life of the children in Tanzania by using less water when taking a shower or by reducing the time he played on the computer. He went
to school by bicycle instead of being brought by car and he also sold some of his personal belongings all in order to save small amounts of money. Doing so he was able to collect more than 200 US $ all on his own. No small feat for such a young boy. He even filled a box with toys to give to the children of Amani.

Therefore we want to say to him “thank you very much Siebe!”

Eddy & Chantal from Belgium”

Friends & Supporters of Amani Orphanage,

We are in the midst of exciting new projects – bringing new facilities and opportunities to the Children of Amani, as well as our dedicated team who make it all possible. We are grateful for the directed funding that makes our new classrooms and dorm rooms a reality, and have no doubt these contributions will continue to allow Amani to grow and prosper.

As we move forward, however, we stay conscientious of meeting the most critical needs for our children: fresh food and clean water. With many of our donations dedicated to construction projects our funding for these basic provisions grows somewhat restricted. As a result, keeping our pantries and plates full each month is consistently difficult.

We reach out to you to ask for your support – financial and otherwise – to keep the Children of Amani healthy and happy. Through your sponsorship, one-time donations, or recurring contributions you will become part of this project that makes such a difference in the lives of Amani’s children. As a 501(c)3 registered charity, your donations are tax-deductible.

We thank you all for your support!

Feel free to contact us will any questions or concerns at childrenofamani@gmail.com!