ABOUT US
What we do
We support poor single mothers with children in Tanzania. These women have jobs with very little income that is not sufficient cover the cost of living for them and their children and much less is left for education. Therefore, the mother receives capital to start a new small business or to invest into an already existing one in order to improve profitability. Many of our widows (and generally many women in Tanzania) have small food businesses, but the kind of business is individual for each one, depending on their ideas and the feasibility. You can find more details in the different family stories on our homepage. Another and meanwhile largest part of our funds goes into the education of children and youth. We have realized that even after getting support for the business, most widows are still not able to finance the education of their children, especially when they have many children. In some cases there is also a lack of understanding of the importance of education. Good education in Tanzania is very expensive, but we consider it as very important. For primary education on governmental schools there is no fee anymore, but parents are required to pay for school uniforms, books lunch at school and other requirements such as contribution for electricity, watchman, teachers and food. Classes in governmental schools are very big and the quality is low. Private schools are much better, but much more expensive. Unfortunately we don't have enough funds to send all our children to good private schools, but at least we try to ensure that every child is provided with everything that is required by the governmental school.
Some of the supported widows are sick at the time that we start supporting them. We cover for medical treatment and when the mother is cured, we want to make sure that she is able to sustain her family on her own and can be independent of the project.
After some years we have also set up our own small class that teaches reproductive health (for girls only), English and computer, depending on the availability of a suitable teacher. The class is open to all children of our supported families.
Who we are
Widows & Watoto e.V. (Germany)
The association Widows & Watoto e.V. was founded on 7.7.2019 in Hanover and registered on 7.10.2019 (Registerblatt VR203212).
Founding members:
1. chairperson: Catarina Nardi Tironi
2. chairperson: Uliana Beser
treasurer: Ingeborg Warratz
Christa Häußler
Manuel Braun
Anna Chevalier
Silvio Nardi Tironi
The association collects donations for the organization Widows and Watoto Empowerment Foundation, which is registered in Arusha, Tanzania.
Constitution (English translation)
Minutes of Founding meeting and constitution (German only)
Founding members of the German association Widows & Watoto e.V. in July 2019: Manuel, Christa, Anna, Ingeborg, Silvio, Uliana and Catarina
Widows & Watoto (Tanzania)
Widows & Watoto is a nonprofit, nongovernmental and nonreligious organization with the goal to support widows and their children in Arusha, Tanzania.
Widows and Watoto Empowerment Foundation has been registered as a Trust on 13.1.2016.
In 2020, the organization wanted to their registration form from a trust to international nongovernmental organization (iNGO). The registration as iNGO has finally been completed in May 2021.
Founding members of Widows & Watoto 2020
Chairperson: Saidi Ally Walele
Secretary: Omary Shabani
Treasurer: Sadiki Saidi
Member: Manuel Braun
Member: Catarina Nardi Tironi
Catarina and Manuel live in Mainz and Hanover (Germany), but are travelling to Arusha on a regular basis. Saidi is involved in community development activities and was engaged in Themisimba Old Age Care Trust as a volunteer as well. Since the beginning, he took over the local lead of the organization in close cooperation with Catarina from German side. The IT student Omary has joined the team in 2017 as computer teacher and later also as English teacher. He turned out to be reliable and showed genuine interest in helping the children. Needless to say that his IT skills come in very handy for the organization, too.
Sadiki came into play mainly in January 2020, when he moved back to his hometown Arusha after finishing college. He had been supportive before that, whenever he was off from college and back to Arusha for the vacation. To our luck he will be here for longer now. He is enthusiastic about creating ideas on how to improve the organization and thinking about how to support our families in the best possible way. He also took over the English class, because since Omary finished University, started working for a television channel and moved to a more distant area of town, it is more convenient for Sadiki to do the class, as he lives right in Sanawari. He is doing a great job as a teacher.
Another active volunteer who is not on the board is Julie Rogath who is doing the "girls only class" dealing with hygiene and reproductive health in 2020. Ingeborg Warratz from the German association is travelling to Tanzania on a regular basis in order to support in countless ways
Certificate of registration (Foundation)
Certificate of registration (NGO)
Tanzanian team with visitors from Germany (January 2020): Ingeborg, Julie, Saidi, Sadiki, Omary and Catarina
How it began:
Catarina has worked on two other social projects in Arusha before via the volunteer and traveler Ujamaa Hostel, where she got to know Evance Martin Shirima and his brother Gasper Martin Shirima.
Back in Germany, Catarina received a message from Evance telling how sad he was when he saw a pregnant widow carrying heavy loads to earn her living although she was sick and almost fainted. Catarina and Evance decided to help sick widows with children without any kind of official organization, just by Catarina sending money to Evance and Evance helping them with medical costs and business capital. 2015 Catarina and Manuel traveled to Tanzania together and decided to start Widows and Watoto Empowerment Foundation together with Evance, Gasper and Saidi (who really knew how to register an organization). The registration of Widows and Watoto Empowerment Foundation was completed in January 2016. Since Evance and Gasper are very busy these days, they are not in the board anymore, but they remain friends of the organization.
Founding members of Widows and Watoto Empowerment Foundation 2016:
Chairperson: Catarina Nardi Tironi
Secretary: Evance Martin Shirima
Treasurer: Manuel Braun
Coordinator: Saidi Ally Walele
Trustee: Gasper Martin Shirima