Frequently we have to answer some questions from our donors, often curious about Tanzania, our work and how we manage to gather the economic resources needed to sustain the project. Today we want to answer to one recurring question: “Do Tanzanians support you?”
The answer is “Of course, they do”
Every month KISEDET receives food, environmental and personal hygiene products. Sometimes we are offered school supplies among other stuff.
For those who live here the answer is pretty obvious because the middle class does exist in Tanzania and those people sustain our project. Our newsletters aim at informing but also teaching: to destroy stereotypes regarding the African continent is the first step.
To think that every African person is poor is silly and false. Likewise Tanzanians are wrong when they think in the Western world everybody is wealthy. They would never imagine a homeless man begging on the streets in Rome, similarly we sometimes find it difficult to think that local people are able to financially support KISEDET through donations. Not only private individual, even entire families or group of colleagues from a private or governmental enterprise can choose to help us.
Here an example: between 2021 and 2022 a private citizen decided to make a contribution of 800 euros (1.841.849,38 tanzanian shillings today) equivalent to the whole salary of a doctor at the beginning of its career; definitely a large sum of money for our standard, even more in this context. Nowadays this person is member of KISEDET Board of Directors. One of our goal is to approach more and more people, both in Italia and Tanzania because a gift has the capability of crossing borders, not only geographical but even those imposed by society. Every single donation coming from a Tanzanian is a sign of awareness towards the needs of his or her own Country, a demonstration of responsibility and willingness to make it better, instead of waiting for someone else to do it.