Changes for Tunza?

Right now is a pretty exciting time at Tunza. A volunteer named Mark, who is from Australia, visited Kibera and Tunza last month and took notice of its need for more structure and organization as well as regular funding. He is currently taking great efforts to set up and maintain a board of directors that will run the center. The board, which includes Dan - who is representing Uweza - has been meeting every week to discuss issues at the center and how donor funds should be spent. Mark is also working on bringing all former and current donors together to pool funds so that Tunza will have a more steady source of income.

He has a lot of great ideas for the center and we are currently carrying out discussions with the board of directors, Faces of Kibera and Mark to figure out the best way forward. This will be really great for the center as it has been living month-to-month for some time now and the added structure will greatly benefit the center and all of the kids. He's working on a website and we will be keeping everyone updated!

Letters

We received several letters from students that we sponsor and they are super cute so we wanted to share some of them. These three are from students that we sponsor through our collective sponsorship fund but who do not yet have an individual sponsor.

Alice, age 13
Duncan, age 14
Oscar, age 13

Coach's Update

Here is an update from one of our soccer coaches:

We had two friendly matches on Tuesday this week, one for our Under-10 team playing against the Under-12 Excel Academy team but we lost 3 - 1. Second was our Under-14 team playing against the Under-14 Excel Academy team but we also lost 3-0. The boys really tried and they enjoyed it despite their loss. Its hard for our boys to start winning the matches because they are actually playing against teams that normally train every day and somehow they are a bit older than them. But all in all we will keep on with the same spirit.

Jenny

Over the summer, we wrote about a girl named Jenny, who we met while visiting one of our HIV positive patients at the hospital. Jenny is 15, is HIV positive and has AIDS. When we met her, she was extremely skinny and sick and very weak. After she returned home from the hospital, we visited her at home a few times and she asked us if we could help her go back to school. She had finished primary school over a year ago but then she became sick and her grandmother, who is taking care of her, could not afford the fees for secondary school on top of the costs of her treatment. This didn't seem very realistic at the time, as she could barely walk or even sit up but we told her that we would try.

Last month, Dan and Meghann went to visit Jenny and were amazed at her progress! She has gained weight and is healthy and looks great. We decided to stick to our word and sponsor her to attend high school. Today, Dan brought her to get a new uniform and to pay her school fees and tomorrow, she will return to school for the first time since early last year.