Rotary Club helps out in Tanzania
Posted by Harry Bracegirdle
on May 13, 2015
The Rotary Club of Port Fairy is helping to build a kindergarten in the village of Mto Wambu in Tanzania as a gesture of support to Port Fairy resident, Seif Sakate, who was raised in Mto Wambu before marrying a Port Fairy girl and eventually moving to Australia to live with his wife and baby son (pictured).
Seif has been busy in his efforts to help the children in his former village in Tanzania - raising funds by way of grants, raffles and monies earned from conducting soccer clinics in Port Fairy.
The Rotary Club initially got involved in helping Seif by collecting second-hand shoes for the school children in Mto Wambu who have to trek for over 12 Km per day to school and back. The support program was extended when Rotarians, Geoff Coxall and Bernie Waixel, learned of Seif's desire to build a kindergarten / learning centre in the village. With help from the Port Fairy Folk Festival, who awarded a $6,000 grant to Rotary to support the building of the kindergarten, the project gathered momentum.
From there, Geoff Coxall has marshaled other Rotarians in Jim and Sue Robinson, along with other friends and family, to take the trip to Tanzania to help build the kindergarten. At the time of writing, Geoff, Jim Sue, Seif and the others in the party are in Mto Wambu where they are putting the finishing touches to the newly constructed building.
The trip is not all work though and Geoff, Jim and Sue will be doing some sightseeing and relaxing on Zanzibar Island before returning to Port Fairy.
A few photos taken in Mto Wambu (shown below) have filtered back to Port Fairy and show the work done so far and the people assisting the project. Notice it is the women doing all the heavy digging of foundations!
