What are we doing and why?

Many of you have asked me what exactly it is I will be doing while in Tanzania. I can't give you the exact details, because, as I have been informed, no two days are the same and we should always expect the unexpected. However, the organization is currently focusing on three main things:
1) Maintaining and expanding its orphanage outside the major city of Arusha, which now houses 19 children
2) Teaching local schools and communities about the cycle of HIV/AIDS and how to prevent it
3) Expanding its "Nafasi Nyingine" program for street kids and looking for sustainable solutions to this ever-growing problem

While I am in Tanzania, I will be working mostly toward the first two goals. At the orphanage I will likely be helping to lay the foundation for a community center aimed at providing low-cost prenatal and pediatric care as well as planting trees for the orphanage's own mini farm. The opportunities to interact with the kids are also endless; One Heart Source wants to provide these children with life skills necessary to support themselves and live successful and happy lives. It does so through providing art and music programs, giving the children household chores/responsibilities, teaching them English, and simply creating a family environment that will love and nurture them as they grow. It's impossible to say specifically how I will contribute to this effort, but I look forward to it immensely.

Toward the accomplishment of the second goal, I will be one of many volunteers entering the village of Mateves and city of Arusha to teach about the cycle of HIV/AIDS and how to stop it. (for what I will be teaching and why it is necessary that we teach it, look for the next entry!) There are currently so many misconceptions and stigmas attached to the disease(s), and OHS wants to do more than simply provide testing and medicine once a year. Its goal is to eventually recruit enough volunteers that each school in Arusha will receive workshops once every four years (think of it as getting sex ed in your high school years). In order to create a lasting impact, it is important that we educate, educate, educate.

If you have any specific questions, just ask, and I will try to answer as best as I can!!!