Local Resident Helps Orphans in Tanzania

Louise Plack, a Montville resident and lifetime Girl Scout, a member of the Quaker Hill Baptist Church, and a teacher in Marlborough, traveled to Tanzania for the first time recently with the organization Pocketful of Joy to help in the education, feeding, health and clothing of students in the Bukoba district of Tanzania.

Plack began raising funds for Pocketful of Joy in 2004, when a fellow educator spoke about meeting Charlotte S. Hunter and asked how she could get the school involved.

Hunter began her non-profit by sponsoring one school’s feeding program and now has three primary schools that are sponsored. Children from these schools are also helped when they go to secondary school, and some receive assistance for advanced education.

Plack and the Diversity committee at Elmer Theines-Mary Hall started using some of their Dress Down Day funds to help build schools in Tanzania. She also started involving her church, by choosing Pocketful of Joy as the mission project for vacation Bible school.

After several years of fundraising, Plack invited Hunter to speak with the congregation about her passion for the children of Tanzania. The friendship between the two women became more firmly cemented by this visit. Church members commented that both women had the same hand gestures and appeared to have known each other for years rather than meeting for the first time. Plack’s daughter observed them for a while and stated that she knew her mother would go with Charlotte at some point. She was correct.

Plack began researching how to leave her full-time teaching job in January to travel with Hunter on her annual trips to oversee the programs, and joined the governing board of Pocketful of Joy.

Special permission from the Board of Education was granted last May for a sabbatical, and Plack began her planning and preparation for the trip. Donations of school supplies were raised by the children and staff at Elmer Theines-Mary Hall School.

Individuals and Quaker Hill Baptist members began to raise funds for Plack, and shots and medications were prepared for the safari (trip in Kiswahili). Plack and Hunter, the U.S. director, left the country January 19,  and returned in March, full of stories, pictures, music and artifacts from their adventures in the villages.

They lived with the Tanzanian directors and became part of the village. While there, Plack spoke to teachers, administrators, boards of education and district education officers about what American schools are like, and what small changes can be made that require very little money, just shifts in attitude and thinking.She brought educational charts for the classrooms, as well.

Based on her observations and evaluations, Pocketful of Joy will sponsor a series of seminars to enhance teacher training in teaching to the various modalities, using cooperative groups and the supervision of students as they work. 

Another series of seminars will be presented to the children in the area of health and sex education. AIDS has claimed many of their parents, siblings and relatives.

Special education is not a part of the local schools in Tanzania. Children with physical disabilities in mobility, vision or hearing are taught at district boarding schools. Students with autism, Down syndrome, learning disabilities, speech and languagedDisorders are not taught at these schools, or in the local home schools. Students with autism and Down syndrome might be at home and not taught, while learning and speech issues are not assisted. 

Elders who are being helped by secondary students in the work-study program were visited. The villages have no electricity or only at some houses, and very little private or public transportation. Most people walk. As temperatures were 80-90 degrees, walking the hill and mountain areas around Lake Victoria was a workout for the women. Their 75-year-old Tanzania work-study director, Mr. George, hardly broke a sweat or stopped to rest.

Pocketful of Joy had eye doctors in to each school to assess the students’ vision and eye health while she was there. Plack helped with exams and with dispensing medicine and eye glasses once they were ready. Many children were given medicine for ring worm, and several children were assessed further at the hospital for other ailments.

Eyeglasses are not common, so instruction had to be given as to how to care for them properly.Dentists had already been to the schools in October, also paid for by the organization.

Currently a wall at Nyakataare is being replaced as it had cracked, rendering several much-needed classrooms unusable. Pre-K classes for ages 5 and 6 were therefore held outside. Last year a lightning rod was installed at Ntoma to ensure the safety of students and staff during the rainy months. A new latrine was also built at Byeya with the help of World Vision.

There are many orphans at each of the three sponsored schools. Some children have one parent and some have none and are living with relatives or with each other in abandoned buildings.

Pocketful of Joy provides ugi for the orphans, as well as, pens, exercise books, uniforms, medicated and laundry soap, and shoes. This year all students, in every grade received pens or pencils from the generous donations that the students gave prior to Plack’s departure. She also brought puzzles, crayons and colored pencils for the library and teachers.

For further information and to make a donation look them up at www.pocketfulofjoy.org.

Both Hunter and Plack are available for speaking engagements in schools, churches, for scout troops and other organizations. Public speaking engagements are also listed on the website.