Well, the administration responsibilities involved with running a charity sure do like to test my patience and consume my time. With having a charity registration in the UK and an International NGO registration in Tanzania, it means two sets of accounts, quarterly and annual reporting in different formats, staff contracts and parent forms in multiple languages, navigating two very different sets of safeguarding standards, varying compliance standards and more and that’s all before we have started any actual project work! There are a lot of very hard working people behind the scenes that support the very large gaps in my knowledge and enable Hope and Soul to continue growing to be the very best version of itself. We are very delighted to have recently welcomed three new trustees to our UK team, gaining a wealth of experience and passion to the heart of our small but growing charity. It is always great to have fresh and compassionate eyes on all of our projects, plans and visions for the future, it really is such an exciting time of growth for us.

April and May are filled with lots of public holidays in Tanzania, which meant time at home for our school kids and on the 7th of April I enjoyed a pizza and movie afternoon with the children at the orphanage. The remaining group of only eight children feels like such a small family but these are my ‘OG’ children that I have known and loved since 2013. They might be closer to young adults than children now and possibly getting too grown up for regular hugs, but they will always enjoy a movie, time together and a pepperoni pizza!

I just love to see our children at Hope and Soul daycare working with such concentration and equally such joy. Of course learning to colour within the lines takes time and ‘orange’ is a very big word to master but with the patience and creativity of our wonderful teachers using a variety of  available resources to teach colours, shapes, letters and numbers the children are making great progress. On the 17th of April our wonderful daycare team and Hope and Soul social worker attended a Child Protection and Safeguarding workshop at a local International school. The staff were absolutely thrilled with the teaching and returned with a wealth of new knowledge, renewed learning points and ideas for the daycare. In the past week I have completed appraisals for all five of our direct contact staff and all are showing incredible development in such a short employment time. At the beginning of April we also welcomed our new daycare gardener Nuru, who is a very talented and hardworking gentleman. He has already made a significant impact on our garden and outside space and daily voices his gratitude for being given a job and the life changing impact it has brought to him personally.

Boarding schools closed at the beginning of April for a short Easter break and I can not believe we are now already organising transport to bring them safely back home again soon for the June break. Edgar was very keen to see me on the day he came home from school to give me a ‘gift’, the little cardboard box carried a beautiful little tortoise that he had found whilst doing groundwork at school. Our little tortoise, now named Joy, has adapted well to her new life at daycare and Nuru watches her closely as she explores our gardens and the children are growing in confidence to gently stroke her shell.

Hope and Soul daycare is now at full capacity as we welcomed our final seven children on the 29th of April, six boys and one girl has balanced out our boy to girl ratio nicely and this group of strong little souls barely shed any tears at all in their first few days. We now have the children split into three groups based on their age and abilities for learning sessions and we are preparing three children to fly the nest and start school in January 2026. There are now eleven children that need sponsorship so please if that is something you would be willing to support or know someone that would, please keep an eye on our social media posts (Instagram and Facebook) or send me an email - hopeandsoultanzania@gmail.com.

We continue to thank God for so many victories and days of celebration here in just two months alone. Little D has graduated from his eye-patching routine, we celebrated Jenipha our wonderful social workers Birthday, Miss R a Secondary School graduate started a tourism college course, we employed a new accountant in Tanzania, had fundamental breakthrough in counselling sessions, a graduation ceremony for Miss H graduating from college, extra special gifts delivered to homes supported by sponsors, a successful Amazon Wish-List campaign (thank you to all of our generous shoppers),  a new business start for one of our six Microfinance project mamas, multiple birthday cakes, pop up tents and more! There is too much to fit into an acceptable length update letter but we are incredibly excited about all that is currently happening and all that God is laying out ahead for us. Thank you to everyone that is part of this incredible journey and the life changing and life sustaining impact you are having to children and families here in Arusha, Tanzania.