Kamitei provided us with a short update on the corona impact in Tanzania on our activities. In general, Tanzania does not have strict lockdown measures like those in other countries. Large public gatherings have been banned and schools have been closed but the government’s approach is not very consistent. Since 17 March all schools are closed and children have stayed at home, including the children who received an Eagle Scholarship from Kamitei. Official data Tanzania is widely thought to under report the true number of infections and deaths, but the situation seems to have improved over the last few weeks though with a lower number of new cases and deaths.
Recently higher education places have re-opened so that students can continue with their studies. Also the kids in Form 6 (last year of high school) are back in school. The complete re-opening of the schools allowing all kids to go back to school is still being discussed. One of the options being discussed is that schools will open in July and stay open without any holiday breaks until the beginning of December (which is the normal end of the school year) to be able to catch up.
Kamitei stopped the lunch program end of March. The food they still had in stock was distributed to teachers. The school visits by Bill have also been suspended (the last school visit by Bill was in Oltukai 16 March). They are planning to resume the lunch program for two months when the schools reopen and to see if they can broaden this program also to other schools. Kamitei believes that this will motivate kids and parents to come to school again and to improve the health of the children. All school fees for the Eagle Scholarships for this year will have to be paid in full, as per government policy.
Jeroen and Jane will discuss plans with Bill in July in Tanzania when they expect the situation to be more normalized again. They also expect that Bill will be able to resume the school visits end of July. Kamitei school exams for August were cancelled and the charity will need to decide on the other exams and how they will award the Eagle Scholarships later in the year.
Contact us if you would like to attend a Zoom meeting / online presentation in September to update you about the situation and our plans/projects. The “normal” Kamitei meetings in Amsterdam and Belgium will likely be in March 2021 again.
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