I write from Arusha in Northern Tanzania. I work with street children and orphaned children within our community. Every day someone dies here – last week the neighbor next to the community centre died from HIV/AIDS, she contracted this from her husband – her five-year-old daughter will be following the mother soon. I have been here for five years now and cannot ever see myself leaving. These children are destitute unwanted and unloved, desperate for attention and needing love. My family grows, as does the work here.

We are a group of six adults and we have started a charity aimed at communities helping themselves. We do not accept any aid; funds from outside our community are not encouraged. Funding tends to cause a culture of lethargy, of waiting for something to happen.

We do not want this. We are responsible for our-selves. Long-term solutions are not achieved by waiting for someone else to bail us out time and time again. We have tried funding and found it does not really help; no one leaves the relationship satisfied. Now we are independent we have wings, we are free to help one-another.

We are overwhelmed with the children though – how to help them best. No one wants them and their future is bleak. What we need are people to partnership with – for advice and for ideas – sending letters to children to encourage them. These letters have such a wonderful effect on young children. Gifti, who is eleven years old, speaks no English and has received a letter from an eleven year old in Liverpool England. The letter talks about life in England and about football; Gifti loves football. Gifti treasures this letter and sleeps with it under his pillow. Ever night he opens it and looks at it, unable to read it but having it read to him so many times he knows the letter by heart. We need letters from other children; or parents to children; and parents to single parent families. We are poor and working on this problem, but encouragement is something this community needs.

Several of the organizers in our group are experienced in the safari industry and because of this; we opened a safari 'ground operation' project to help raise funds. We organize the safaris for overseas Travel Agents. The profits from this company go into the community projects. We have not yet a webpage for the community projects but this will be launched in a month or two. However, the link bellow has some two pages about what we are about, what we do and how we operate.

If you are able to help encourage a child or single parent long distance, it would be greatly appreciated. Money is not the issue here – the issue is help and encouragement of our women and children to persevere and strive for a better quality of life in difficult circumstances.