Local Venturan supporting drought relief and
delivering school supplies for children in Tanzania

Ventura, California (September 3, 2006):  Angela Kirwin, co-founder of Kirwin International Relief Foundation (KIRF) traveled to Tanzania this summer to provide drought disaster relief and school supplies for children. Her connection to helping in Tanzania came from her contacts at the Jane Goodall Institute and Tanzanian members of it's youth service program called Roots & Shoots. KIRF's purpose in Tanzania was to help with drought relief efforts and to support disadvantaged Roots & Shoots youth members and their schools with donated school supplies.

The current drought in East Africa has been devastating to Tanzania, one of the poorest countries of the world. Its per capita income is about $600 a year and about 60% live on less than $2 a day according to the UNAIDS web site. About 80% of the population works in agriculture according to the CIA-Factbook web site.

Students in the first- and third-grade classes at Will Robers Elementary School made friendship bracelets for their counterparts in Tanzania. In return, the Will Rogers' teachers got a thank you letter and post cards and photos from Tanzania.

Ventura resident Carol ("CJ") Oliverson traveled to Tanzania with Kirwin to help as a volunteer for KIRF. She also contributed to the relief effort by bringing over two donated lap-top computers for the Roots & Shoots office in Arusha, Tanzania courtesy of her employer Ventura Printing. The donated lap-tops will enable Roots & Shoots youth members to participate in a beneficial conservation education program called Nature for Kids and be a training tool for vocational skills to help them better themselves.

"In the rural areas in Tanzania that we visited, conservation is more than preserving wildlife habitat, it's also about managing the natural resources so people can keep their cattle and feed their families," Kirwin said.

Kirwin brought over donated women's clothing and jackets donated by Patagonia and Water Girl to local Roots & Shoots groups as well as a solar oven, donated funds for drought relief and 1,000 pencils and paper for students.

Even though primary education is universally mandated for all Tanzanians, the primary schools are acutely under-funded and none of them visited by Kirwin had pencils, paper or text books for their students. Some of the classes had eighty students. The primary school teachers in Tanzania that Kirwin met made about $160 a month.

"At each school the most urgent need was water. After that came school supplies like paper, pencils and books. Then the students and teachers wanted things to improve their schools like trees planted to stop the blowing dust, fencing to protect their tree seedlings from being eaten by livestock. Then they asked for school scholarships for high achieving children who won't have funds for secondary school and more school buildings to ease the over-crowding," Kirwin said.

Kirwin visited eight public schools in the Arusha and Karatu districts of Tanzania. KIRF was able to donate pencils and paper and to one school, Oldonyo Sambu Primary School, KIRF purchased and delivered fencing and a 1,000-water tank for a new rain catchment system to provide water to the school during the drought.

"The teachers and students at Oldonyo Sambu Primary School seemed amazed that we came back a few days after our first visit and delivered the exact things they said they needed the most. They were so grateful," Kiriwn said.

"Even the teenage students seemed so happy to get a pencil. It was heartbreaking and yet inspiring to meet so many young people who have so little materially but are so motivated to go to school and succeed, " Kirwin said.

"We got a first-hand look at the insurmountable problems facing poor women who are HIV-positive in Africa during our trip. We met a single mom whose daughter was a Roots & Shoots member. Due to her HIV-positive status she was unemployable for child care and food preparation due to people's fears about HIV." Kirwin said. KIRF gave her funds to pay for her antiviral medication for the several months after getting proof of her condition.

Kirwin and her family plan to return to Tanzania with more educational supplies and drought relief next summer.

Since the Kirwins’ first relief work in the field during the tsunami disaster in Thailand they have fundraised for other relief projects and have worked with local humanitarians, educators and doctors in Thailand, Cambodia, India and Mississippi USA for Hurricane Katrina relief.