Faraja Support, Helen Ross

“Faraja Support aims to meet the needs of orphaned and vulnerable children in Northern Tanzania. We want to provide a safe and nurturing environment for children to live happily in – somewhere they can reach their full potential.

We are still a very young charity, so we’re really reliant on the Charity Commission for guidance and advice. Their insistence on carefully formulated objectives has meant that we’ve kept our focus and clarity while planning our activities. The credibility that their involvement gives us was a huge help when we ran into difficulties with a partner in Tanzania – their support enabled us to remove ourselves from that situation and to re-assess our objectives.

We’ve now been back to the area on a new fact-finding mission and are in the exciting process of identifying the best way forward. We understand that there are a lot of ethical and moral issues to consider and we recognise how essential it is to assess each child’s situation individually. For many the best solution is to remain in their own community with our support – however there are times when this would put the child in danger, in which case a decision might be taken to move them into residential care. We’re also planning to encourage a focus on play, showing local teachers how this can be an important part of the learning process.

We’re really excited about our future now and delighted that we have the support of the Charity Commission to help us achieve our aims. With their help, we’re sure that we’ll be able to make all our great intentions pay off!”