Eve Jeffery
Under the watchful gaze of Mount Kilimanjaro, a Byron Bay man is paying it both backward and forward as he helps single mothers in Africa create better lives for themselves.
Walter’s decision to help change the lives of as many people as he could came from two events that happened in Africa. The first was when a lad he had been teaching for months dropped dead in front of him from dog-bite-induced rabies. The second was when he became very ill and was taken in by a family who had nothing yet still shared all they had with him to help his recovery.
The lad was a child of a single mother and the Kingazi family who nursed him back to health were grandparents to a single mother’s child. ‘For two weeks they gave me everything they had. When I got sick I had no money. Nothing. They had nothing, yet they put me up.’
From these two events Tasimode was born.
Tasimode is a non-government funded organisation to help single mothers located in the Manyara Region, Central-Eastern Tanzania, Africa. The goal of the project is to become an evidence-based NGO that is there to provide an opportunity for young single mothers to move from economic hardship to a better life with purpose and new skills.
Walter says the project wants to help the women help themselves. ‘Unlike various other organisations, Tasimode will not financially support individuals without their own effort.’
Single mothers who show an interest in acquiring a more sustainable life for themselves and their family get an hourly wage to work on various projects and get training in how to deal with problems and issues; setting goals; organisational skills and financial sustainability as well as other life skills;
‘The cycle of where a child is born and raised is extremely important when trying to educate and minimise poverty. The mothers are generally not suitable to raise and care for their child owing to the lack of funds to provide food, clean water, education and in some instances, shelter for their child.
‘This moved us to form the organisation Tasimode, where we are making the change for the new generation of children, the change they deserve’.
Find out more at: www.singlemothersfoundation.org.
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