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Touching
Stories
TAKING THE NEXT STEP
By Jann Mitchell
How
often have we read about people we admire, great deeds,
causes worth supporting - and wish we had such initiative,
such passion, such drive?
The
truth is, any great act begins by taking one small
step. And then another step. Followed by the next,
and the
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next.
When we look back in wonder at how far we've come, we can
see the trail of all those faint footprints.
I
was afraid to take a step the first time I was in Dar and
stood at the fence along the waterfront, wondering what
all those Tanzanian women were doing as they bustled about
carrying things on their heads, stirring great pots, and
chattering companionably. As a mzungo, dare I go down and
find out? Nervously, I walked into their midst, to be met
with smiles and waves. When I motioned permission to take
a photo of a woman stirring ugali, she said "Yes"
in English and before I knew it, I was the one at the pot
and she was behind the camera!
Befriending
Amina and her co-workers in the kitchen prompted the next
step. Then meeting Amina's sister, Fatuma. Then visiting
Fatuma's 13-member preschool in a tiny room of her home
in Mbagala (where being mzungo caused adults to stare, young
boys to point and call out, and babies to cry with fright!).
Fatuma
had already taken a step toward her dream of a real school
by erecting a foundation of bricks as she could afford to.
I agreed to help her, and showed friends back home in the
United States the photos of tots and the dreamed-of school.
Everyone helped by donating money, and the school became
a reality, with 55 students 2½ through 6 years learning
English, math, writing - and receiving perhaps their only
meal of the day.
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That
step led to the creating of the Bibi Jann Children's
Care Trust, which includes the school (now expanded
to first grade), GRANDMA-2-GRANDMA
(through which sponsors "adopt"
a "bibi" who is raising her AIDS-orphaned
grandchildren, a meeting place for those bibis, a
women's group, and several orphans who now live with
Fatuma at the school.
Generous
people around the world and right in Dar stepped
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up
to donate money and time, food and clothing, transportation
and friendship to the school, the children, and the bibis.
They include individuals, the Small Friends American pre-school,
organizations such as the Diplomatic Spouses Group in Dar
and the American Women's Club in Stockholm, Sweden - and
even the world-wide corporation KPMG.
An
enterprising woman who's not afraid to take steps of her
own, Fatuma now hopes to buy a far larger plot of land to
contain a school with all grades, an orphanage and a hospital
- a grand undertaking which once would have seemed impossible…had
each of us not taken one small step.
Won't
you take one small step toward educating, feeding, clothing
and befriending Tanzania's next generation? Can you donate
money or time, used clothes and shoes, some extra food,
your expertise?
A child is depending on you. And one step is so easy.
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