News & Events

The clinic was recently connected to the mains electricity supply. They used their FUM £200 donation to buy a medical inspection lamp and and a hand drier.

The village has also been busy making concrete blocks with the aim of building a maternity delivery room.

The delivery room is needed because the village is 30km from Urambo Hospital and the road can be impassable in the rainy season.

Thanks to receiving a generous, anonymous donation FUM was able to tile the floors in the clinic and paint the internal walls. Not only does it make the floors much easier to keep clean and hygenic but it also makes the working environment much more pleasant. Previously the floors were bare concrete.

Thanks to the fundraising efforts of our sponsored walkers we raised enough money for the borehole project to go ahead. Our good friend Mr Lucky Mgeni, a water engineer, supervised the whole project. A hydrological survey identified a site for test drilling and this proved successful with a good flow rate found. Laboratory tests showed the water to be of good quality.

Four of the 6 nurses below passed all their college exams and so are eligible to enter the exams for the government National Licence scheme. These take place at a small number of designated centres and the students have elected to take theirs at Mwanza, the nearest centre to Nzega. As well as the £50 exam fee they also have accommodation and food costs for the exam week, another £50. FUM and our colleagues at FON are sharing this cost.
Results will not be know until the summer. If they pass then they will be fully licensed to practise as nurses.

In addition to the funding provided for new buildings, the College was successful in a bid to the Tanzania Education Authority for funding the refurbishment of the welding and metal fabrication workshop.  It took some time for this work to be completed, affected in part by the Covid pandemic.

Because of the difficulty in sourcing spares for the College vehicle, it was agreed that a motorcycle would be purchased.  FUM could not consider the expense of replacing the College Tempo Trax vehicle.

For two years FUM helped with further training for Dr Mary Mkamwa, a skin specialist. She is now fully qualified and one of her responsibilities is for the 52 people in Nzega District who suffer from albinism. This includes the family in Mambali.

Sadly the mother died recently of skin cancer, a common problem due to the lack of protective melanin in their skin.

To help Dr Mary in her work FUM made a one-off donation to provide a year's supply of factor 60 suncream for each of the 52 sufferers. They will also receive regular check-ups with Dr Mary.

The staff house is complete and the rainwater project was completed soon after Easter. The clinic is now fully functional with staff accommodation on site and a good supply of water.

We are very grateful to our colleagues in Tanzania who have made this possible, with help from FUM. It has been a long haul but well worthwhile and it will make a huge difference to the local villagers.

Bureaucratic delays mean that there has been very little progress with the government's wider scheme.

FUM has agreed to hold its contribution promised for the Maboha section.

It has become apparent that the underground water table in the locality has been falling for a number of years, making the two existing shallow wells increasingly unreliable.

Early indications are that a deep borehole will be needed but its viability will need to be confirmed by a hydrological survey.

Our special project fundraising for 2020/2021 is to raise funds for a solution to Isegenhe's water problems.

With help from the local community and especially from our colleagues at
Friends of Nzega (FON) construction of this much needed accommodation was completed just after Easter. It means that a nurse is always available so is particularly beneficial for night time maternity deliveries. It was opened by our good friend Hon Godfrey Ngupula the District Commissioner. The resident nurse is Pius Mahela.