Goodbye 2020; Hello to 2021!

Our Malaika Kids had a good Christmas break in the Children’s Village. As you know, each child lives in a family unit of up to 10 children, looked after by a live-in mama. This model provides a consistent base for those children who attend special and boarding schools. When they return home for the holidays, they really do return home to their Malaika family and mama. At Christmas the number of children (and noise) in the Village swells to over eighty, not only with returning children but also those from the Reception Home in Dar es Salaam who come to join in the celebrations. Normally we would visit in January but because of the pandemic we are unable to do so. So the children decided to write to us to let us know how they are doing.

One group wrote, “It was a very nice Christmas holiday and Christmas day we ate very good foods like chips, chicken, pilau, samosa, donuts, chapatti and we drank soda and a very good milk tea. And also we have some music and we danced and enjoyed very much.”

Another told us about their outing to the seaside. They said, “We enjoyed a lot on the beach and we learned how to swim so that we can immediately help if someone sink in water…we visited beach of Barakuda and enjoyed so much to swim in the very big ocean. We played music and other very good games.”

The children all know that we take their education very seriously. One wrote, “About our schools performance we are always doing well and we promise you that we will pull up our socks. It means we will study hard to create our future life. Our teachers they gave us holiday homework. We are doing our homework.” All the children are now back at school or college or on apprenticeship courses. In November our six children in Form 4 of Primary School took national exams and last week they received their results. We are absolutely delighted to report that four of them received an ‘A’ and two a ‘B’. Since a ‘C’ counts as a pass they have really excelled themselves. Lifewaylight, the fee paying school the children attend (£400 per child per year) should also be congratulated on its excellent teaching!

Unfortunately, the not so good news is that four older children did not do as well in their O levels as we and they had hoped. Two have sufficient passes to go on to do A levels, but not necessarily in the subjects they had wanted. And the other two will probably need to leave school and undertake vocational training. We will continue to support and guide them as well as we possibly can. I will finish with a couple of quotes from the closing remarks in the children’s letters: “Thank you for your cooperation and we love you all”... ”Your lovely friends Malaika Kids.” Let us hope that 2021 will be a better year than last for you <<First Name>> and all of our Malaika Kids.

Goodbye 2020; Hello to 2021!

Recent Posts

Recent Comments

Stay in touch

You have Successfully Subscribed!

Stay in touch

You have Successfully Subscribed!