Blog

Goat and chicken projects

The intention of these projects is to contribute in a small way to income-generation and self-sufficiency as well as providing a base for vocational learning. Children and young people with disabilities along with their families/carers are engaged in learning and skills development including: animal husbandry, carpentry, record keeping, nutrition awareness and problem solving. The support READ MORE

The support CAPDA provides enables:

Construction of appropriate and secure animal shelters by local tradesmen
Purchase of animals and start up food costs
Training re animal raising and care
Produce to augment usual nutrition
Work towards sustainablity goals.

Oscar’s story

Oscar stole the heart of Sara, Capda’s Program Manager in Tanzanaia. Here is part of his story: Oscar is 7 years old living in Kibosho in a family of 5 children including him. He is smart, and can communicate well… He wants to know everybody and what they are doing. He also wants to go READ MORE

Oscar stole the heart of Sara, Capda’s Program Manager in Tanzanaia. Here is part of his story:

Oscar is 7 years old living in Kibosho in a family of 5 children including him. He is smart, and can communicate well… He wants to know everybody and what they are doing. He also wants to go to school. When he received his chair. He suddenly changed, he became shy. I think he realized what he can do from now! He then said “I will go to school, I will learn and become a doctor”

Indeed in July Oscar held a pencil for the first time (see photo) and his mother can now take him to school.

Beach Energy Sponsorship

A series of projects funded by a sizeable grant from South Australian energy company Beach Energy is being rolled out by CAPDA in northern Tanzania. The grant has already been used to provide advanced training for two paediatricians and three nurses in surgical procedures to help children with spina bifida. Children born with this condition often suffer READ MORE

A series of projects funded by a sizeable grant from South Australian energy company Beach Energy is being rolled out by CAPDA in northern Tanzania.

The grant has already been used to provide advanced training for two paediatricians and three nurses in surgical procedures to help children with spina bifida. Children born with this condition often suffer from hydrocephalus, and, if left untreated, this leads to a build-up of fluid and pressure on the brain.

Hydrocephalus can cause permanent brain damage and loss of function, and in extreme cases the head can become so large the person cannot hold it up. A simple shunt can be inserted to drain the fluid and relieve pressure on the brain. Sadly, in developing countries many children still die of hydrocephalus and on the operating table. During the training, procedures were carried out to treat eight children with spina bifida and hydrocephalus, all of them successful!

The inaugural Beach Energy Scholarship was awarded to Albert Chaki (above), an Occupational Therapist from Comprehensive Community Based Rehabilitation Tanzania (CCBRT). Albert has impressed us over the years with his skill and dedication, and we are delighted to support his further studies in Community Development. Future projects led by Albert will support children with disabilities by improving nutrition, reducing family poverty and social stigma.

The Beach Energy grant will also be used to purchase wheelchairs, design seating solutions and support 9 of CCBRT’s live-in week-long intensive therapy and training workshops in 2013. Each workshop allows 25 children and their carers from rural villages to receive assessment, treatment and information from a range of health professionals.

Private concert raises $10,000 for CAPDA

Above: CAPDA representative Tony Stimson, Tanzanian Honorary Consul Sossy Msomi, and Music for Moshi organiser Nick Van Den Brink On a balmy night in February more than 300 people gathered at a property in the Adelaide hills for Music for Moshi, a private function featuring live music, food and wine in a magnificent setting. South Australian musicians contributed READ MORE

Above: CAPDA representative Tony Stimson, Tanzanian Honorary Consul Sossy Msomi, and Music for Moshi organiser Nick Van Den Brink

On a balmy night in February more than 300 people gathered at a property in the Adelaide hills for Music for Moshi, a private function featuring live music, food and wine in a magnificent setting.

South Australian musicians contributed their talents to entertain the crowd, and local businesses provided meat on the spit, beer, wine and cider at low cost to support the event.

The event was the brainchild of brother and sister Nick and Isabel Van Den Brink and their family, with all profits donated to CAPDA.

The target of $5000 was met from ticket sales, but there was also a silent auction and donation tins which raised nearly as much again!

Part of the money raised will go towards improving continence management for children with spina bifida. The rest will provide basic equipment such as beds and mattresses and mosquito nets at the Gabriella centre outside Moshi. It will also establish a community garden for the children and teenagers who attend the centre.

Also enjoying the music were much of CAPDA board, and Tanzanian Honorary Consul in South Australia, Sossi Msomi.

The night was such a success that the Van Den Brinks are considering holding another concert in the future!

Moshi beading cooperative

One of capda’s priorities for 2013 is to strengthen the capacity of a beading cooperative run by parents of children with disabilities. CAPDA commissions beading work—including jewellery, Christmas decorations and bags—to be sold at Presence, a wonderfully quirky gift shop in Adelaide, who generously pass the profits from this stock back to CAPDA. This arrangement provides the READ MORE

One of capda’s priorities for 2013 is to strengthen the capacity of a beading cooperative run by parents of children with disabilities.

CAPDA commissions beading work—including jewellery, Christmas decorations and bags—to be sold at Presence, a wonderfully quirky gift shop in Adelaide, who generously pass the profits from this stock back to CAPDA.

This arrangement provides the cooperative’s workers with much-needed income, and CAPDA uses any profits to provide further equipment and training.

The Year Ahead

Following the success last year of our grant from the Australian Government to provide equipment and infrastructure to disability facilities in Moshi, CAPDA is excited to announce a series of similar projects for 2013. Not only do we have two further grants under review, but we have also received a generous grant from Beach Energy, READ MORE

Not only do we have two further grants under review, but we have also received a generous grant from Beach Energy, a South Australian-based energy company with business interest in Tanzania.

This grant will go towards an intensive programme of training workshops for more than 200 parents and carers of children with disabilities in the Moshi area, and will provide funding for further study for selected health professionals working with these children. It will also enable the development and manufacture of seating solutions, and commission six locally-made wheelchairs. We look forward to sharing more on this exciting development throughout the year!

Alongside these targeted projects, we will continue our grass-roots support for the disability community in Moshi.

Thank You

CAPDA would like to thank everyone who supported its work in Moshi over the last year. A growing number of Australian individuals and organisations have made generous donations to support disabled communities in Tanzania. Fundraising events have ranged from school casual clothes days to church fairs. St Chad’s Anglican church (Fullarton, South Australia) and its community READ MORE

CAPDA would like to thank everyone who supported its work in Moshi over the last year.

A growing number of Australian individuals and organisations have made generous donations to support disabled communities in Tanzania.

Fundraising events have ranged from school casual clothes days to church fairs. St Chad’s Anglican church (Fullarton, South Australia) and its community continue to support CAPDA, and one enterprising group is knitting squares to make blankets for the children, who often lack even the most basic necessities. Another group has arranged a private concert, with CAPDA to receive part of the proceeds from ticket sales.

If you have any suggestions for fundraising, please don’t hesitate to get in touch!

Poverty and Disabilities

Poverty erodes or erases economic and social rights such as the right to health, adequate housing, food and safe water, and education. The same is true of civil and political rights, including legal rights, political participation and personal safety. Poverty is both a cause and consequence of disability: poor people are more likely to become READ MORE

Poverty is both a cause and consequence of disability: poor people are more likely to become disabled, and disabled people are more likely to become poor. Neglect, abuse, discrimination and exclusion means health, education, housing and livelihood resources and opportunities are difficult for people with disabilities to access. The costs and availability of medical treatment, rehabilitation and assistive devices also contribute to chronic poverty and social isolation experienced by many people with disabilities and their families.

Addressing disability is a concrete step to reducing poverty. At the same time, poverty must be eliminated to achieve health/life improvements for people with disabilities. A main focus of CAPDA’s work is to support poverty reduction by supporting community-based disability services and disabled people’s organisations to improve access to health, education and livelihood opportunities by children with disabilities and their families.

It was a pleasure for CAPDA Director, Jan Baker, to see and report the wonderful improvements noted to BCC centres in Moshi in the last 6 months. Easier accessibility to centres, mobility and supporting aids, and simple things like bibs and storage cupboards, makes such a difference to children and carers alike. To see the children sharing a meal at their new dining tables and chairs was a joy!

This trip CAPDA met other local agencies helping children with disabilities in this region that are in also in need of assistance. We will keep you posted.

Helping turn good policy into good outcomes

Over the past decade, the government of Tanzania has made several serious commitments to improving the lives of people with disabilities. The National Policy on Disability, 2004 (NPD) and Tanzania’s ratification of theUnited Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) form a promising policy framework to improve the lives of people with disabilites. The aspirations of READ MORE

The aspirations of the National Policy on Disability include:

encouraging the development of people with disabilities
empowering families of people with disabilities
reviewing and amending legislations that are not disability friendly
improving service delivery
enabling participation of people with disabilities and their families in decision making and implementation of important activities and disability activities in society.

However, as is so often the case in developing countries, these encouraging policies have been hindered by economic and social factors.

The real challenge is to find ways to turn Tanzania’s disability policy aspirations into concrete action. Various CAPDA projects, focused on practical and sustainable development, aim to assist local services and groups to meet this challenge by:

offering training for the professional carers, volunteers and family members who care for children with disabilities
developing assistive technologies and related services for people with disabilities
improving material standards of daily care provided by disability services
improving access to information, early intervention services, technical aids and participation in decision making
developing networks with disability groups and service organisations.

Australian Government Grant: Update

CAPDA’s recent grant from the Australian Government’s Direct Aid Program was a great success. Here are the reactions of two of our Tanzanian partner organisations. The grant has been very helpful in improving the quality of the service rendered by BCC … Staff have received training which has made a tremendous change in their capacity to READ MORE

CAPDA’s recent grant from the Australian Government’s Direct Aid Program was a great success. Here are the reactions of two of our Tanzanian partner organisations.

The grant has been very helpful in improving the quality of the service rendered by BCC … Staff have received training which has made a tremendous change in their capacity to deliver services to children. Children who needed adaptive equipments have received them and it has made life much easy to them self and their caregivers. Ramps, furniture and other supplies in the centres has made the centres much more friendly to children and staff to work more comfortably.

Elirehema Kaaya, manager of Building a Caring Community (BCC)

Our experience is that children with cerebral palsy who receive wheelchairs come to the center under/malnourished but there is a definite increase in their weight after three months of using a wheelchair during feeding. Children also definitely have better trunk and neck control after 6 months of using a wheelchair. We are grateful and CAPDA enabled us to provide wheelchairs to children who attend WIT at CCBRT.

Ruth Mlay, Director of the Moshi branch of Comprehensive Community Rehabilitation in Tanzania (CCBRT)