Current INO Projects & Objectives ::
The main objective of the Organisation is to provide all forms of primary assistance to the vulnerable elderly people of the community as well as to the disadvantaged orphans. Particuly we aim at providing:
Shelter and Nourishment- Clothing
- Medical treatment as needed and
- Educational opportunities
In order to effectively achieve a sustainable solution in addressing the above issues we have fine tuned our specific objectives in our Constitution so as to do the following;
- Identify and combat communal problems that force disadvantaged and vulnerable children to become street children (e.g. family abuse)
- Connect orphans or children that are abandoned by their parents with guardians
- provide the educational pre-requisites so that we enable youth (and other interested parties such as widows) to acquire a variety of vocational skills that will strengthen their employability (or enhance their chance of success in starting a small scale business); in this way we productively occupy the time of our youth and protect them at the same time from all street dangers of HIV/AIDS and drugs
- organise educational seminars on a variety of issues (including care of the elderly, family planning, drug abuse and prevention, English tutoring for adults etc.) with the aim of ensuring the maintenance of a knowledgeable adult base in the society that will provide for the young and the old alike
- develop links and cooperation with members of the local community, religious societies, social-aid groups as well as other international NGO’s in order to exchange ideas and improve or strengthen our plans of action and
- render ourselves an international volunteer hub, where young people from different countries may congregate under our auspices to work together towards our common goals; [we may further link these volunteers with other NGO’s on a par- time basis if applicable]
Although the main objective of INO revolves around the two focus groups of concern, namely the elderly and the children, we make it a point to contribute towards Africa’s battle against HIV/AIDS. The people living with HIV/AIDS (PLHA) constitute one of the largest disadvantaged groups in Africa that face risks of exclusion and alienation. Our objective in this case is to:
- Support the PLHA in the way we support our elders focussing in particular on educational issues on HIV prevention, patient care and reintegration into the active society.
Our objective for the future is to establish a set network of donors (among
other occasional ones) that offers regular and systematised donations
(e.g. on a monthly and biannual basis depending on the donor). The fulfilment
of such an objective would enable us to actually establish a logistics formula
and a standardised recurring donations inflow, thus becoming more effective
in supporting the people who seek our help.
Structure & Focus Of Projects
A number of interrelated projects are held together under the organisational umbrella of INO, some ongoing and others more recent. In this section an analysis is provided for each project based on five mainstream areas of activities.
- Sponsorships at the pre-school, primary and secondary school levels
- New Secondary Boarding School
- Sponsorship at the vocational training and university level
- Educational Seminars - Ongoing education
Support for the Orphans, Vulnerable Children & Youths
Our children are supported to the extent possible through the centres of
INO in the town of Arusha, Moshi and Simanjiro. However the number of orphan
and underprivileged children identified in these areas of focus is by far
greater than the ones fully supported at the time of writing.
It is estimated that a total of 600 orphans and vulnerable children are not capable of satisfying their basic needs of adequate shelter, nourishment, clothing, medical care and education opportunities as they applied for INO Surport. These include children from the town of Arusha and the rural areas of Mkono, Mang’ola, Simanjiro and Moshi.
At the moment we are able to support, as mentioned earlier, a group of 40 orphans that are also studying at the St John Vocational and Training Centre. Our students are being hosted by families in the town of Arusha that receive in exchange ad hoc support by INO when and however possible. Naturally we would like to regularise and systematise this assistance so that these families may support the next group of orphan children once this class is transferred to proper boarding nursery and primary schools.
St John Training Centre was initiated in 1999 in an attempt to offer support to orphan, underprivileged children and adults in the form of tutoring at the secondary school level and seminar workshops. In the year 2001, we proceeded to register the project for the first time as St John Vocational and Training Centre under the Vocational Education and Training Authority of Tanzania (VETA). Two years later we placed the centre under the auspices of the newly established Non Governmental Organisation Irpayan O’ Ng’era.
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The now full-fledged vocational centre provides a variety of courses focussing on those skills highly demanded in the employment market around Arusha. These vocational courses are offered for a period of one or two years (certificate or diploma respectively) depending on the level of expertise requested by the student. The course curriculum comprises:
- Tourism (with emphasis on sales and marketing)
- Hotel management, Tour guiding
- Computers (software training and technical repair course)
- International languages (English, French, Spanish, German, Italian and Kiswahili)
- Secretarial studies, Driving and vehicle-mechanic training
The St John Vocational Centre complies with INO’s philosophy as a non profitable institution. It is thus maintaining a balance by means of which a cross subsidisation is attained between those students that are capable of paying school fees and the ones with no means to do so. Any discrepancy is to be made up by INO who encourages outside sponsors to support the disadvantaged youth. Alternatively any available income generated by the St John school may be utilised by the INO
Care for the Elderly
Currently and for the last three years INO operates a support programme
that caters to 60 elderly people. Our elders come from a variety of regions
and tribes. In the Arusha region we have been active among the Maasai, the
Meru and the Arusha people; in the Moshi region we have been assisting the
local Chagga elders and deep in the land of the Maasai we work with the communities
of the Simanjiro region.
Our programme for the elderly is structured around the axes of basic needs
in terms of nourishment, clothing, medical care (including personal hygiene
items such as bedding and soap etc.). In particular cases we also support
the rental payments of our elders ensuring their stay in premises of a respectable
standard of living. Our NGO maintains a monthly schedule of hope-giving Home
Based Care visits aimed at those elders who are otherwise incapable to access
our premises
Care for the People living with HIV/AIDS (PLHA)
People living
with HIV/AIDS represent one of the hardest aspects of modern Africa. We,
as an NGO have been able to address this harsh reality at least partially
for the last five years. We are currently operating a project by means of
which we support 23 PLHA, providing for their shelter expenses, nourishment,
clothing and medical care and hygiene needs.
Home Based Care visits are the way to approach these, often sensitive, people
that do not wish to be seen seeking our help. INO volunteers are specifically
selected in our focus areas so that they may provide a constant link between
us and the PLHA. Such volunteers are normally local community representatives
or teachers with knowledge of their areas and their people. These people
are the first ones contacted by the PLHA community in the case of a problem;
through them we implement our reactive response.
Micro-FINANCE for Widows
Our widows are either members of the elderly or the PLHA support groups and as such are catered for in the context of the support extended to those groups.
However, recently we have identified a target group of 25 widows (including HIV/AIDS positive women) to participate in a new experimental project. We have budgeted for a periodic sum per individual offered at three month intervals (four times a year); the aim is to aid these women in starting up a small-scale project on their own that would hopefully flourish and begin generating enough cash to support their basic needs. Such projects may include preparing and selling local food (like fried cassava, chips, deep fried doughnuts or even local dishes) at the premises of their own house, buying and selling vegetables to the local neighbourhood etc.
Our support package includes per case advise tailored to each receiving member at the time of each installment paid. In addition two specialised seminars will be organised for the 25 selected widows on the topic of ‘Starting a small-scale business’ and ongoing guidance is available while the effort is at an initial stage. Progress report sessions will also be established before approval of the next instalment to the selected parties. Our support horizon is to span the course of one year.
This project is conceived as a set of microfinance loans that will provide them with the necessary tools for cash generation and management so that these women alone succeed gradually to satisfy their needs. In the case of success the confidence of these often battered individuals will be strengthened beyond any doubt.
Newly Initiated Projects
This year we are hoping to undertake two new initiatives that are to assist us in our day to day operations. The idea behind activating our own resources in producing what is needed by our underprivileged groups is to lighten, to the extent possible, the weight of our budget requirements; we would like to achieve a certain degree of independence from outside help so that we may be able to react in the event of an outside shortage of donations
Food Production
The project entails renting a parcel of land in Mlagarini, the area where we plan to begin the construction of our new Secondary School. In the course of the year we are planning to clear and cultivate four acres so that our first harvest may result by the end of 2008. Our cultivation will focus on the supply of fresh vegetables such as beans, pumpkins, cucumber, maize and the like. The beneficiaries of this work will obviously be no other than our own orphan and vulnerable children as well as our elders and people living with HIV/AIDS. Depending on the success of our work we aspire to expand the project accordingly to satisfy as much as possible our overall nourishment needs.
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