The Scissors For You

This is Eveline, a bright student in our Blessed Maria Teresa Ledóchowska pre-school in Kiabakari Catholic Parish. Her dream is to be able to continue her studies in our educational institutions up to Form Six class in High School. She knows too well we have pre-school completed only, while the primary school is still under construction since August 2007 with only six classrooms ready and the school kitchen to be completed in the next month or so. A secondary school and a high school are still in the planning phase only. But she is full of hope that her dream will become reality some day and the ropes of limitations coming from the place of birth and scarce opportunities of proper and continuous education in this area to develop her skills and talents and obtain the best education possible in Kiabakari - will finally be cut through with the help of Fundacja Kiabakari and the people of good will worldwide. Here are the scissors for you from Eveline. Come and take your part in cutting through those bonds enslaving dreams of our children and the youth in Kiabakari.

Eighteen Years

Look carefully at this picture below:

It was taken right after the Divine Mercy Sunday Mass in 1996. Late President of Tanzania, Mwalimu Julius Kambarage Nyerere and myself were standing at the corner of the not-finished-yet shrine of Divine Mercy (it was dedicated on July 3, 1997) and we were talking about the situation of the education in Tanzania and in Mara region area in particular. Mwalimu was very adamant about the need of providing the quality education at grassroots levels, especially in our areas. He was giving me his moral support in the realization of this dream.

I was showing Mwalimu the future development of the parish, where the planned institution were going to be located and the picture caught the moment where I was talking about the future primary school in Kiabakari. We were looking in the direction where now there is in fact the not-finished-yet building of the primary school.

I am praying to Mwalimu now, believing strongly that he is in heaven, to pray for us, so that after eighteen long years since that day where we talked about the importance of education in Kiabakari, this dream comes true this year. Please, pray with me to Mwalimu!

Touchdown

Finally, after a couple of months of communication, paperwork and pushing through bureaucracy and unexpected twists and turns on the way, the first container with donated goods for our health center, pre and primary schools and for our neighbors - Resurrection Sisters at Chief Wanzagi Girls' Secondary School - has touched down in Kiabakari this morning. The offloading work went smoothly and things are securely stored for the time being as we finalize the development projects and make space for the equipment to be placed where it should be.

Gratitude to God Almighty for His blessing and Providence, thanks to Resurrection Sisters in Melbourne, Australia, in particular, Sister Hermina, and to all people of good will involved in the whole process in Australia, my friends in Dar es Salaam who helped with clearing process and finding the solid transporter, my classmate in Austria who donated two thirds of the money needed for the payments in clearing and forwarding process and to all who prayed for the safe journey and arrival of the container to Kiabakari. Thank you all from the bottom of my heart! Certainly, the donated items will help us immensely in providing better healthcare and education at grassroots level in rural Tanzania. 

Registration Of Our Schools In Kiabakari

Just a quick note. Went this morning to the Ministry of Education and Vocational Training with the complete documentation from Mara Region for the registration of our pre- and primary schools. Met nice people there. Hopefully, Hon. Minister will find time to sign approval of the docs, so we can process with the full registration. Fingers crossed and prayers, please!

Recycling Education

I would like to share with you quickly a remarkable story of a lady in my home parish who relentlessly goes around people's houses collecting papers, magazines, newspapers for recycling. The money she gets from the recycling center she collects until it suffices to support one child in my pre- and primary school in Kiabakari through the educational adoption program of Foundation Kiabakari. So far this year she was able to adopt educationally four children already. Amazing effort! Recycling for education. Recycling wasted paper to give it a new meaning - a hope for quality education for underprivileged children in rural Tanzania. Hats off to the wonderful lady! I applaud her effort as I send a thanksgiving letter to her today for the donation of the fourth adopted child in our school.

Genetic Engineering

I was simply not engineered by God (with cooperation with my parents) to withstand meetings longer than one hour. Today, the day after the hectic and tense day of the official opening of the main water tank (check my previous post), when I usually suffer from 'the day after syndrome', feeling blue and down and exhausted, I had to participate in the diocesan meeting of headmasters and managers of all diocesan schools (pre-schools, primary schools and secondary schools) at Conference Center of Diocese of Musoma in Musoma Municipality...

Happy Day

I can only imagine how happy a day this is going to be for many families and individual parents who joined our educational adoption program of Foundation Kiabakari. This is a day when we start to dispatch educational adoption info cards on each individual child under the program to their respective parents worldwide. A very happy and exciting day for me, for our Foundation and for the new parents!

Closing In

Sending completed dossiers of children under our educational adoption program to the Foundation's headquarters in Krakow, Poland, for registering and dispatching to respective sponsors worldwide. I am very grateful to all those magnanimous people who came to our aid and joined the program by adopting our children. As we speak, we are closing in to number 50 of children already taken care of by our sponsors. This makes me really happy and full of praise to all those friends who are with us. Praying for them, wishing them well and hoping that you, who are reading these words, will be touched by this message and join us as well. Come one, together we can make a real difference in lives of our children in Kiabakari! God bless you all!

What I Ever Wanted...

Riding on the wave of yesterday events and amazing meetings in silence of this peaceful morning, grateful so much for being blessed with new amazing friendships, true gems of humanity which graced my life on many levels, I'm working on educational adoption program at the moment, finalizing dossiers of children under the scheme, ready to be dispatched to their respective sponsors...

Photo Session

Last Monday, on February 7, 2011, the doors to standard one classroom opened officially and our graduants from Blessed Maria Teresa Ledóchowska Pre-School crossed the threshold of the classroom for the very first time. This marked the actual opening of our Blessed Edmund Bojanowski Primary School in Kiabakari. A genuine milestone and hallmark in my life and struggle to make the dream, the vision of Divine Mercy embracing the whole human person right here in Kiabakari, on the Divine Mercy Hill and around it - come true...

The Weakest Link

Sitting in Musoma in scorching heat for the umpteenth hour now, waiting for my filmmaker to overcome his dementia and massive failure of his brain memory. Packed all Tv and dvd equipment to drive back to Kiabakari to work on the documentary movie on the educational adoption program and the graduation day in our pre-school. Then suddenly he said he could not find the master digital tapes of the footage of the graduation day. Ouch! So now the whole family, staff of his office and friends are trying to locate where the hell he did put those tapes!? Without them all is lost. And I will have wasted the whole day waiting for his memory to kick in back to life if he fails to locate those tapes... Life sucks sometimes...

The Rock City

My first short trip to Mwanza city, some 185 kilometers from Kiabakari, this year. Meeting a couple who brought a special gift from someone in UK who did a magnanimous gesture of fundraising money for children in Tanzania, while climbing Kilimanjaro Mountain a year ago with serious spinal problems along with our dr Jadzia from our health center in Kiabakari (while she was still with us). She made it and raised money for two places - one in Arusha and the other in Kiabakari. So, today I meet those people who brought almost five hundred British pounds being our share of the total amount to hand over to me on behalf of that heroic Polish woman in UK. It is a very touching moment for all of us and I will make sure that the hard earned funds are spent wisely in Kiabakari for educational projects for our children in Pre-School and Primary School. The link to the fundraising webpage is here. Thank you, Maja!

The Point Of Death

“My daughter is at the point of death. Please, come lay your hands on her that she may get well and live (...) “Why this commotion and weeping? The child is not dead but asleep.” And they ridiculed him. Then he put them all out. He took along the child’s father and mother and those who were with him and entered the room where the child was. He took the child by the hand and said to her, “Talitha koum,” which means, “Little girl, I say to you, arise!” The girl, a child of twelve, arose immediately and walked around. At that they were utterly astounded.”" (the whole episode at Mk 5:21-43) The words of Jesus to the little girl: "Little girl, I say to you, arise!" are immensely encouraging to all girls in Africa, in Tanzania, and in our region of Tanzania in particular, who live in a male dominated society, ruled by male biased rules and customs, discriminating the girls and women in many areas of their lives, mainly in education, healthcare, employment, payroll, ownership of land and property...

'Giving birth is not as hard as raising a child'

The Tanzanian proverb quoted in the headline of this post comes handy and proves to be valid and true in times like these. The long-term effort to prepare institutions capable of providing good quality education and formation of our kids in Kiabakari and the area is a huge undertaking which has taken already a good chunk of my life, energy and resources...

Two Victories

This day today brought a genuine mental rollercoaster. Feeling a bit drained and burned out, but calmly happy as two miracles happened today, two small victories, two prayers heard and answered, and all this on this special day, the Feast of the Birth of Our Lady...

Third Pillar

The main idea, mission statement and an engine behind all projects undertaken in my mission in Kiabakari  can be specified as follows: “Anyone approaching and ascending the Hill of the Divine Mercy shall find Divine Mercy embracing the whole human person – spiritually, physically and intellectually. The Diocesan Shrine of Divine Mercy is the place where the human soul in particular is being immersed in the Ocean of Divine Mercy. The Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati Health Center is the place where the suffering human body meets Divine Mercy addressing its needs. John Paul II Center for Education and Formation is the place where young and adults alike are educated and undergo holistic formation on the basis of the message of Divine Mercy. By these three major avenues which allow a human person meet Divine Mercy in a holistic manner, the whole human being is immersed in, touched and transformed by the Living Merciful God.”

The Nursing Mother

On this day, July 6th, we commemorate Blessed Maria Teresa Ledóchowska, 'the nursing mother of the African missions' as she became known due to her commitment to support African missionary effort in her times, by working in the background, founding Sodality of St. Peter Claver, missionary sisters dedicated to supporting missions without going actually to mission territories itself.