Each year Amani helps spread joy to children who’ve faced homelessness by holding a festive Christmas party – and it sure is a highlight of the year for all of us who get to go! This year’s Christmas party was held on Saturday, November 28th, and was a wonderful day of celebration and fun.

The morning of the party, everyone decorated Amani with balloons, streamers, and joyful Christmas messages. The Amani kids began their day by receiving a new shirt and trousers. Everyone was eager to look their best for the day’s special guest – Father Christmas!

Amani’s acrobat troupe and choir performed for the audience of children, caregivers, and Amani’s neighbors. Finally, it was time for the man in the red suit to make an appearance. The children called out his name as he strolled out with a bag full of presents over his shoulder.

Each child at Amani received a shoebox of small toys, pens and pencils, stickers and toothpaste. The presents were made possible through Samaritan’s Purse’s Operation Christmas Child, which helps spread the joy of Christmas to needy children around the world. With games, presents, singing, drumming and dancing, and a big feast at the end, Christmas was a special day for the Amani kids!

Would you brighten the future of a child in need this holiday season? For as little as the cost of a pair of sneakers, it’s possible to send a child to school for an entire year. Make your donation today!

“It’s Christmastime. There’s no need to be afraid. At Christmastime, we let in light and we banish shade. And in our world of plenty we can spread a smile of joy. Throw your arms around the world at Christmastime.” – Do They Know It’s Christmastime?

During the day, Arusha is a pulsing tornado of hustling pedestrians and blaring car horns set against a glittering skyline of tin-roofed shanties and countless windowed storefronts. As night descends, the cars and people recede into the fading sunlight and out from the shadows come the children who call the streets home, searching for a safe place to huddle away from the night’s horrors.

John Mbati, Amani’s Street Educator and a trained Tanzanian social worker, sits on the edge of a bed inside a small motel on one of Arusha’s labyrinthine side streets. He bends over to tie his shoes and grabs the notebook where he keeps the case files of the children he is currently working with. He heads into the shroud of night, where the smell of smoke fills the air and the sound of wild dogs echoes down the streets.

John often begins his evenings at a small food stand where many homeless children wash dishes in exchange for leftover scraps of food. The stand’s owner cooks on a single-burner stove, cradling a baby swaddled in a jacket three sizes too large. Beside her, children are rinsing plastic plates in a tub of brownish-gray water.

As John greets the woman, a small group of faces turn towards him in the dull spray of light falling from the single streetlamp above them. “Teacher, teacher!” the children shout as they run towards his familiar face. Many children on the streets are skeptical of adults and John has worked hard to build a relationship of trust with these children. With a smile, John pulls a tattered deck of playing cards from his shirt pocket. Tonight there are two children he has never seen before. One smiles beneath a face of open sores.

After a few card games and a long talk where the boys tell him their stories, John stands and stretches his arms over his head. He can see the hunger in the fallen cheeks of the boys. He pays the food stand owner, who produces plates of rice and beef stew. After they finish the plates of food, John encourages them to come with him to Amani, where they’ll be safe. He tells them to meet him at the bus-stand the following morning and to bring all of their belongings.

Day breaks on the next day, and John finishes his coffee and begins the walk towards what he hopes will be a child ready for their second chance. He rounds the corner and three skinny bodies run towards him, yelling, “teacher, teacher!”. Through grinning teeth, John asks them where their things are. “He has them”, one of the boys says, pointing to the child with the sores on his face. The boy is wearing a makeshift cape, fashioned from a dusty, checkered napkin. He holds out his chapped hands, wherein lies a single dead battery.

The three children return with John to Amani and begin their new lives. The boys visit Amani’s nurse and receive a check-up on their first day. Over the coming weeks, they’ll begin school at Amani while Amani’s social workers begin their search for relatives of the children who might be able to provide a safe and happy environment in which the children can grow up.

The following evening John is back on the streets, looking for other children with no where else to turn.

Children living on the streets are impoverished in almost every way. They lack basic necessities like access to healthy food, clean water, and shelter. On the streets, they are also deprived of an education. With the help of Christina Claxton and Laura McPherson, special needs educators from the United States who are long-term volunteers at Amani, Amani has developed an education program tailored to the unique needs of children who’ve spent significant time on the streets, helping them make up for the class-time they’ve missed.

Many children arrive at Amani with limited exposure to the classroom; some have never even been to school. Each child receives individual tutoring time to help strengthen basic reading and writing skills. It’s this attention and extra help that fills in the gaps and targets their specific learning needs, vastly improving their school experience.

The needs of children at Amani vary significantly from those needing a little extra reading time in Amani’s library to those requiring more comprehensive support, like Daudi Amani. Daudi is autistic and verbally uncommunicative. He has lived at Amani for seven years and is estimated to be around ten years old. Caring for Daudi is a full-time job and requires daily occupational therapy, life skills exercises, and basic academic training. Christina focuses on helping Daudi become independent, teaching him to shower himself, wash his own clothes, brush his teeth, and even lend a hand in the Amani kitchen.

Christina also works with kids who display less severe special learning needs, which are often a result of malnutrition, a lack of exposure to school, and emotional challenges – all issues that result from their lives on the street. “The kids that present with learning needs often come in with no exposure to the classroom or even school. We start from the basics and play catch up. Not all of them have learning disabilities, but they lack exposure to the whole school experience,” says Christina.

As in many parts of the world, in Tanzania, people with disabilities are often seen as a burden or hindrance to society and are grossly misunderstood. The majority of Tanzania’s population makes their living through subsistence farming and children are expected to lend a hand on the farm. For a child with a learning disability, life can be very difficult if their caretakers are unaware of how to live and work with a child who needs special help.

However, Christina believes that attitudes towards these children are starting to change. Sitting at a restaurant on a recent outing, Daudi attracted attention from the other customers. Slowly people began coming over, asking Christina questions about Daudi’s behavior. A waitress joined them at their table. Daudi picked up an empty glass and poured some of his soda for her. This simple act of kindness surprised the young woman. It is experiences like these, says Christina, which will help to create a better understanding of people with special needs in Tanzania.

Helping Hands sponsors are the backbone of Amani Children’s Home. Their monthly donations provide vulnerable children with healthcare, an education, clothing, and a nutritious diet. Amani’s programs are long-term efforts, requiring a stable, dependable source of funds.

This month we’re focusing on Helping Hands Klaus and Eva Marie Bigler. Klaus came to Tanzania in 2007 to climb Mount Kilimanjaro, Africa’s tallest mountain. On the last night of his holiday, Klaus saw an Amani flyer on the wall of his hotel. Moved by the devastating poverty he had witnessed during his trip, he made a donation to Amani.

Once he returned home Klaus and his wife decided to make monthly donations to Amani in order to help rescue the children who’ve lost their homes because of extreme poverty. “I thought, if you spend $150 fortnightly on petrol for your car you should be able to donate $60 every month for these children,” says Klaus.

Klaus was drawn to support Amani because of its deep roots in the Northern Tanzanian community. “It’s important for me to know that the children who are in trouble get comprehensive care – from clothing and food up to counseling and medical care.”

Klaus retired from teaching in 2008, beginning in 1969 teaching students from ages 10 to 16. He moved on to become a principal in 1984. Eva Marie is a teacher, too. An avid musician, Klaus also taught music. He began playing piano when he was 14, playing in pop, jazz, and blues bands throughout high school. Today, he plays piano and writes music for local choirs groups. Every summer Klaus spends two weeks in the Alps, where he works as a mountain guide for peaks between 3500 and 4500 meters.

Klaus and Eva Marie live in a village on the outskirts of Tübingen in southern Germany. They enjoy the company of their two playful Golden Retrievers. They have three grandchildren who bring them a lot of joy, and are expecting the arrival of their fourth in March!

Amani is deeply grateful to Klaus and Eva Marie, and all the other Helping Hands sponsors, whose dedicated support makes a world of difference in the lives of Tanzanian children.

Special thanks to Cassie Seidler and Peter Richards for their help with this month’s Amani newsletter!