For over 10 months KiliTech has been working in the East Kahe ward making tremendous development of the villages located in the ward. Recently, KiliTech has focused its efforts in making the following possible;
Availability of clean and safe drinking water to schools, serving more than 350 children in Soko Primary School and Majengo pre-school combined
Building a kitchen, repairing a damaged septic tank and installing solar power and TV for Soko primary school, Making a total of $5500 spent up to date
Built a community hall in Majengo sub village in Kyomu capable of accommodating more than 350 people simultaneously
Training more than 50 women and 20 men in different vocations, such as beekeeping, sewing and tailoring, food catering decorating. The training however has benefited more than 500 people who have been in direct contact with the people trained in these vocations.
Set up an operating a maize mill which serves more than 600 hundred residents in Majengo sub location.
Supported a campaign advocating for women and matters associated with women such as family planning, girl child rights and youth.
The campaign raises awareness in the community and education. More than 4 campaigns have been conducted reaching Secondary school students, village elders, head teachers and the youth. Not less than 880 people have benefited from these efforts both the young and old.
Providing food to Kiterini primary school to reach over 400 children.
Spear heading the efforts to upgrade the current dispensary in the ward from serving 20 patients per day to a health center capable of serving more than 50,000 people from different wards in Vunjo Division.
More than 20 media reporters attended the conference from Television reporters to newspaper and radio reporters. The event started at the MIT offices at 9:30 am where there was a 30 minutes meeting between KiliTech and the District Medical Officer. There after, we left for the village around 10:10am.
The first stop was Soko village in Soko Primary School where the following took place:
Short speeches from the District Education director, Kamili Mmbando the ward councilor of East Kahe, Soko village chairperson Mr. Jonas, Soko primary head teacher Halima Msangi and the KiliTech president Laurel Werner were given.
An appreciation to what KiliTech has done in Soko village was hugely applauded by Ms. Halima Msangi the head teacher. She said when she was transferred to Soko Primary school, she had only three teachers at her school, but due the improvements done to the school by KiliTech and the government interventions through Kamili Mmbando two more teachers joined the school a making a total number 5 teachers are now available in the school.
Lastly, KiliTech handed over the water project officially to the Soko Primary school management in the presence of the media. The KiliTech president, Laurel Werner handed over the Project to the District Education Director who in turn handed it over to Soko Primary school.
The Education Officer gave a short motivational speech urging people to protect the project saying “You have been walking for long distances to fetch water, and if you don’t want that to happen again, please protect this project.”
From Soko village we moved on to Kyomu village to the location where the new health center will be built. This is where the ward dispensary is located. Here we had interviews with Kyomu village chairperson, Kamili Mmbando and the Clinic Officer in charge.
Mr. Kamili Mmbando spoke about the cooperation between KiliTech and the Tanzania government in building the center. He promised the work to construct it will start as soon as the Memorandum of Understanding has been signed between the goverment and KiliTech.
There after, the Kyomu village chairperson showed us the land and the boundaries allocated for this project. He also spoke of the ward health center committee’s (which he chairs) preparations in contributing its part in building the center. There have been two planning meetings so far over the matter and the villagers have been fully appraised on the situation. The committee has targeted people in the community who would help in contributing for the construction of the health center but everyone is welcomed to help by any means such as labor.
After then, the clinic officer in charge Ms. Maimuna, spoke a little history about Kyomu dispensary. This dispensary was built in 1987 she said. And that It serves an average of 20 patients per day and can not admit/hospitalize patients. It also serves as a children’s clinic, offering education on family planning and child health care education. In July this year a new building was handed over to the dispensary. This building was built mainly for laboratory activities. Currently it is not in use because it lacks the necessary equipment to operate.
According to the clinic officer Ms. Maimuna, the prevailing diseases in the area are water borne diseases like bilharzia, stomach discomfort and they have experienced cholera out breaks on a few occasions too. Despite the fact that there is clean and safe water in the village the villagers are using water from running streams and this water is not safe.
We made a final stop with the reporters in Majengo sub-village.
We first had lunch, a wonderful meal prepared by Maua group. Maua group is a group of women from the village who are hired to cook in different occasions. The group has shown great achievement from being able to serve 100 people in July to now being able to serve over 600 people in an event. Now that’s what you call growth! (Tunakua). Everybody enjoyed their simple yet delicious meal.
After the lunch, we had three interviews with the press, Mr. Kamili Mmbando, East Kahe ward councilor, Laurel Werner, KiliTech President and Tony Werner, KiliTech deputy President.
Mr. Kamili Mmbando thanked KiliTech for the wonderful things it has done in his ward, starting with men and women in Majengo.
The school improvement in Soko village, the food for the children in Kiterini Primary school, the campaign for women and on the pending projects of the health center and the school improvement in the entire ward.
One of the question that was paused to him by the news reporters said, “KiliTech has done so much for you, what has been done by you as a government representative to support these activities?”
He replied, "The government has shown its support in building the health center, it will improve the roads connecting all the villages in the ward to make easy movement from one village to another. It has started by improving the Kyomu - Soko road and that will be the trend in the whole ward"
He also emphasized on the importance of the involving the citizens of East Kahe ward in the projects. This should be done by the village leaders being transparent and communicative, sharing of information on what is happening in the ward. The information will help the citizens to trust them and the activities that they will be doing in the ward.
Lastly he promised full cooperation with KiliTech in the future.
Laurel Werner spoke of a little history about KiliTech, how it started, why it was founded and what it all stands for. She said KiliTech aims at improving the lives of the people in East Kahe ward and other rural communities in Tanzania. It believes in equality that everyone has an equal opportunity to improve themselves and KiliTech supports the ideas of better education, better socio-economic development. She promised the support and cooperation of KiliTech in making East Kahe a better place.
Tony Werner spoke about the importance of integrating technology with development and how KiliTech will work with people in the ward to make sure that it becomes a reality before finally thanking Maua group for the wonderful meal.