Fatuma

This is Fatuma. She is 25 years old and has two daughters. 

She grew up in Moshi, about an hour away from Arusha with 2 brothers and one sister. When she was little her mother left to go bury her mother in Arusha for two months and when she returned she found her husband (Fatuma’s father) married to another women. So her mother returned to Arusha with her and her younger brother leaving her older sister and brother in Moshi. When she was 5 she went back to her father in Moshi. She went to school in Moshi but never did well because her stepmother didn’t allow her to study and did not help her. She was mistreated by her stepmother who never had her own children. The father was never around to help her. She was only fed when she worked around the house and farm. After primary school (7th grade), which she did not pass, she started training in sewing but she  always arrived late and her step mother  caused problems so she wasn't allowed to continue at the school. She felt her only option was to find a man and so when she had the opportunity to marry her sister’s brother in law she grabbed it. She was 17 years old and he was 25. They were always fighting because he was drunk. She went back to her stepmother but was mistreated and abused there. So then she went back to the husband and suffered whatever treatment he gave her because she had nowhere else to go. She did odd jobs like carrying water and washing clothes for money to feed her baby. Then she had her second daughter and when her youngest was 2 years old her husband came home and gave her money to buy food she bought the food. But the husband came home drunk and wanted the money back and when she didn’t have it he beat her and stabbed her. She ran off to another region of Tanzania to work as a house girl. One daughter went to her mother’s house and the other daughter went to live with the father’s mother.

This is the story as Fatuma told me one raining day as we sat in the workshop. Tears streaming down her face she tells me this story of fear and hopelessness. From what I can see she never had a chance, no one ever loved her or cared about her future. She was never encouraged to do well at school or to even go to school. I can't even relate. My heart to broken. How can I help someone like this? Someone who thinks that they are

worth nothing because that is all they have ever been told. So much abuse and neglect can break a person.

But Fatuma has hope! She's excited about learning skills that will guarantee her a job and a hope for a better future for her and her daughters. At Shining a Light she is also learning how to be a mother. For so many years her family has been scattered and she is now pulling them back together. It's wonderful to see her grow and transform into a woman that will create, inspire and empower!

New Day Care Center

Shining a Light has opened a new day care center for the children of our students. Monika is one of our graduates and she will be running it each day. Right now we have seven children that will take advantage of the free care while their mama's are learning to bead, sew, learn English and many other skills that will provide a  brighter future for their children and themselves.


The children will be feed, given naps and have plenty of room to play. The day care center is right down the road from the workshop where the mothers can come each day at lunch to play and visit. This is one less thing
for these women too worry about
while they train with us.

Clean Water

The students in their clean water seminar 

Clean water is so important. We know this because we have been told in the west to drink it and drink a lot of it. It's the best medicine for any sickness and prevention to many diseases. Here in Tanzania clean, safe drinking water only exists on store shelves or after extensive boiling. Tanzanians don't buy or boil because bottles are expensive and wood for fires is costly too.  So, they chance it. They deal with diarrhea on a daily bases. They spend money that they don't have on doctors and medicine and they live with it knowing there are no options.

Putting together their filters

The women (our students) each get educated about clean water and the many benefits of having a filter in their home. They gain understanding that the water they are using now is harmful and puts them and their family's at risk.  They also are trained in other ways to clean and purify their water such as boiling and buying but in the end they realize that the cheapest most effective way to bring safe water into their homes is through a filter.  They also learn about the financial benefits of clean water. They spend less time sick, less time going to doctors and less money on medicine.

Jennifer VanderGalien (SAL Founder) pitching in

After our training all the women want to purchase a filter.  We sell the filters to the women at a very low cost but must charge them something so that they will cherish it and use it. Last week we trained 11 new students on clean water and distributed 11 water filters. There are now 11 new families in Tanzania that have access to safe, clean water.

If you are interested in donating a water filter to Shining a Light please go to our website www.shiningalight.org and donate $45 for a Sawyer water Filter. Your donation of $45 will alert us that you want to purchase a filter so that an entire family in Tanzania can have clean water.