By Mary Martin Niepold, Founder
July 04, 2010. We have been in Africa for five days, and every day here reminds me of how blessed we are in America– and how much there is still to do for the brave grandmothers in Africa.
Known as “nyanyas,” their need is great. But every time I hear one of their stories, I know that The Nyanya Project has chosen the best way to help change their future.
“Now we have hope,” said Anna, who finished a year’s training in business skills in Nariobi in April. “Thank you.”
By teaching skills, TNP has now successfully assisted more than 200 grandmothers earn more income than they have ever known. Consequently, their grandchildren can count on basic needs like school, food and medicine. One generation is changing the future for another generation.
For our first two days here, Maddie, a student intern from Wake Forest University, and Linda, a new volunteer from North Carolina, joined me in visiting eight of our Nairobi grandmothers whom we have trained. Every woman said that her life was better and to please thank everyone in America for remembering them and their families.
In Nairobi, our grandmothers now earn up to $30 per week from their small vegetable stands. Before our training, they earned $5 per week.
At the Pre School Center we opened last July in Nairobi’s Kibera slums, progress came in the form of 40 small children who sang, clapped, squealed, recited numbers and repeated the entire alphabet and new English words.
“Ca,” they said in unison. “Ca, ca.” “At.” “Ca, ca.” “At.”
“Cat.”
Eunice, one of our grandmothers who is now 71, learns alongside her three orphaned grandchildren when she comes to the Center to help with the childrens’ lunches. Her grandchildren attend free because Eunice works there.
Eunice walked proudly to the spelling chart on the wall. “Cat,” “boy,” “bell,” she said perfectly, row after row of words. The little ones clapped their hands when she finished. Eunice beamed.
“Every night my grandchildren teach me new words,” she said. “They also correct me.”
~~~
For the last three days, we have been in Mwanza, Tanzania, to visit with our newest group of grandmothers, four remarkable women who are learning business skills from our partner, the Tanzanian Home Economics Association, who were recommended to us by CARE International.
Here in Tanzania’s second largest city, the surroundings are like an exotic, lush landscape from a planet far away. Huge boulders erupt from the land forming gigantic abstract rock formations. All around them are banana trees, bougainvillea and the dark waters of Lake Victoria.
One village after another dots the landscape just outside of the city, and many of the villages hold simple concrete houses that have been built around the boulders. In one of them, Rosa lives.
Rosa Mabele, age 59, is one of our newest grandmothers of AIDS orphans in training. She lives here with four orphaned grandchildren and three children. Her husband died four years ago and today she supports her family of seven dependents by making “mandaazi” (doughnuts) and selling them and chai (tea) from a small concrete room next to her house.
After only two months of training, Rosa has been able to triple the amount of mandaazi she prepares and sells. Because she can see profit for the first time, she now has another dream. She says her next “tea shop” will be bigger. It will be next to Kenyatta Avenue, a major road down the hill from her house, and she will employ two other women to help her.
When Rosa says this, it doesn’t sound like a dream. It sounds like a reality that has already happened, a reality made from determination, training, and a short span of time just waiting for Rosa to choose her next location.
There may be as many as 18 million grandmothers across Africa who are raising grandchildren after burying sons and daughters to AIDS. TNP cannot reach them all, but one grandmother at a time, we really are changing the future for entire families. We see this every time one of our grandmothers says “asante sana” (thank you very much) to us.
We say “asante sana” to them. They show us what courage, devotion and love look like.
