Southern Highlands Participatory Organisation

In June Jan van Dijk, his wife and two board members from “Stichting Endelea” came to Njombe and visited some of the projects they are funding. Stichting Endelea is a Dutch organisation that funded a lot of projects in Njombe district.

The board members went to Kibena Hospital where SHIPO is planning to build a dormitory. The dormitory is for children and their parents/guardians who are living far away from Njombe Town. The children need sometimes physiotherapy for a few days and it is too far for the parents and the child to travel to and from the village to the town everyday. Again they cannot pay the accommodation in town.

Also they visited Miva village to see the dispensary they sponsored. In this village Mr. and Mrs. Van Dijk decided to give the community 20 bags of cement for the foundation of the staff house. After visiting Miva they went to Ihalula. In this village, SHIPO has just started the construction of a new dispensary for the community. With their own eyes they could see how the construction of the building is going on and how the people from the community are involved.

The last day the delegation went to Itowo Kindergarten. At the time of their visit the kindergarten teachers were being trained by SHIPO. The community invited the guests to have lunch with them. Besides visiting projects at the site they also talked to the “Tunajali” department of SHIPO. The discussion was on people living with (HIV/AIDS) and most vulnerable children in the villages. Jan van Dijk together with his colleagues were very interested in how SHIPO is working on this.

July 2010