Lohada / Kesho

Hello, we are Eliana, Addie, Liam and Farah and with our family we are raising funds to support our research on Rheumatic Heart Disease (RHD) in Tanzania and to aid LOHADA, an orphanage in Arusha. RHD, a preventable condition caused by untreated strep infections, disproportionately affects children in low-resource settings, often leading to severe heart complications and even death. During our research we used handheld echocardiography to screen 185 children for early signs of valve damage. Notably we did indeed find RHD in some of the children who will need farther cardiac care and treatment, eventually surgery. Your support will help provide medical screenings, follow-up care, and essential resources for the children at LOHADA. Any contribution makes a difference!

Hello friends, family, and compassionate supporters around the world,

This coming June and July, we will be traveling to Arusha, Tanzania to volunteer for LOHADA, an organization along with its umbrella organization, Kesho (a US-based non-profit) that educates, feeds, and houses underprivileged and orphaned children. We are reaching out to you with a heartfelt mission: to help talented and hardworking students in Tanzania achieve their dreams of a college education.

The Challenge:

In Tanzania, many brilliant young people are forced to put their dreams on hold due to financial barriers. Despite their determination, academic excellence, and desire to give back to their communities, the high cost of college tuition makes higher education out of reach for many families. The cost per year to send a kid to college—around $1,000-$2,000 a year—is low in comparison to the US but completely out of reach for many Tanzanians who make an average of about $150-$450 monthly.

Our Goal:

We are raising $7000 to provide tuition scholarships for deserving students in Tanzania. Every dollar raised will go directly toward tuition, books, and essential school supplies. Our initial goal is to fully fund at least 6-7 students for the upcoming academic year. Currently, LOHADA has 12 of the children it has raised over the years attending college.

Why It Matters:

Education is the key to breaking the cycle of poverty. By supporting these students, you are not just funding tuition—you are investing in future doctors, teachers, engineers, and leaders who will make a lasting impact in their communities and beyond.

Meet Some of Our Students:

Winnifrieda Rueben - Winnie is studying for her BA in education at the University of Dar Es Salaam and focused on literature and geography,

David Wambura - Also at the University of Dar Es Salaam, David is studying Diplomacy and International Relations. Maybe someday he can represent his country as a diplomat abroad.

Shakainah Jackson - Shakainah is just finishing up his first year of college and was chosen by the government to attend college in Bagamoyo to study TV/Film Production.

These three students came to LOHADA when they were just tiny children and through its support, have grown into fine young adults.

How You Can Help:

Donate: Any amount, big or small, will make a difference!

Share: Please share this campaign with your friends, family, and on social media.

Support: Leave a message of encouragement for our students—they love hearing from you!

Transparency:

We are committed to complete transparency. All funds will be managed responsibly, and regular updates will be provided so you can see the direct impact of your generosity. All donations are tax-deductible in the US.

Together, We Can Make Dreams Come True

Your support can change the course of a young person’s life forever. Thank you for believing in the power of education and for helping us build a brighter future for Tanzania.

With gratitude,

July 2025 LOHADA Volunteers

Donate today and help us unlock the potential of Tanzania’s future leaders!

Hi Everyone!

Every year dozens of volunteers like the ones in this video come to Tanzania to make a difference. This summer we're excited to have Ezzie and Samara, two 15 year-old girls, coming along with their parents to help paint Camp Joshua's classrooms, host a camp for the children, and assist the doctors that will be there giving physicals and heart exams.

Volunteers always choose a project to focus their fundraising efforts on and the girls chose to raise money for exercise books and school supplies as well as raise money for the camp activities they will be planning.

LOHADA focuses on educating disadvantaged children (over 300+) from across Tanzania at it's school in Arusha as well as operating a hospital and two farms that help grow crops to feed the children it cares for.

Every contribution, big or small, makes a real impact. Even just a few dollars can help. All donations made are 100% tax deductible in the US. LOHADA is a Tanzanian NGO but fully funded by it's US umbrella non-profit organization, Kesho.

We are so proud to welcome these volunteers this coming summer. Volunteers generally leave feeling like they got more than they gave when visiting. Kesho and LOHADA may focus on educating the children in Tanzania but we feel our volunteer program helps educate young people and adults from across the globe.

Volunteering abroad opens your eyes to the world's diversity and teaches you that kindness knows no borders. In giving your time to others far from home, you gain a deeper understanding of humanity and youself.

Please donate! If you can’t donate right now, sharing this fundraiser is also incredibly helpful. Thank you so much for your kindness and generosity. It means the world to us.

Come volunteer with us yourselves soon!

Tina Ashamalla

Kesho Board President

www.lohada.org

Many of you know that mental health treatment has made a HUGE difference in my life. In 2019, I had the amazing opportunity to briefly visit and work with Mama Wambura (founder), staff, and children at LOHADA. While there, some of the stories I heard broke my heart. I gave a small mini lesson on emotional regulation, but I am not a licensed professional and it just wasn't enough. I am raising money to bring a therapist who has previously worked with LOHADA back to work with their children. Each visit is $20, which grew to be outside of the budget for LOHADA. I am aiming to raise $2,000+ to provide at least 100 visits. Your donation would mean the world to me and would help provide much needed health care to children who are facing challenges I never had to. Mental health care saved my life, and now you have the opportunity to provide this type of care to the children of LOHADA.

More information about Lohada / Kesho:

Kesho is a 501c3 umbrella organization for LOHADA, a children's home and school in Arusha, Tanzania. LOHADA is home to indigent, orphaned and abandoned children. We provide education from pre-school to college for children and youth in our centers. We run a farm where youth learn to raise crops, which feed the children and raise operating funds. LOHADA operates a clinic that provides low-cost healthcare and a mobile unit in rural areas. Some youth receive degrees and then work in our school and clinic.

Dear Friends & Family,

This June, we will be heading to Arusha, Tanzania as part of a volunteer group to work on several projects for a non-profit organization called LOHADA (www.lohada.org). LOHADA focuses on helping disadvantaged and orphaned children throughout Tanzania by providing them with food, housing, and an education as well as running a health center and mobile clinic in some of its more remote areas.

Our group will consist of 25 volunteers coming from Argentina, the US and Spain ranging in age from 8 to 67 years old. While we have several projects that we will be working on, our main goal will be to install a driveway and cement pathways throughout the four acre campus of LOHADAs' Camp Joshua school. This will finally allow the children to move freely from their dorms, classrooms and dining hall without trudging through the grass and ground that typically swell with rainwater. The rainy season brings downpours that turn Camp Joshua into a muddy mess.

LOHADA also runs a small farm in Arusha called Mt. Horeb whose aim is to grow food and vegetables to feed over 285+ children that LOHADA cares for. We are lucky to be joined by both a Professor of Horticulture from Spain and an Agricultural Engineer from Argentina who will be assessing the farms productivity and providing expert advice for future crops.

In addition to mixing and pouring cement, our other projects will include:

We chose to focus our fundraising efforts on LOHADA for several reasons:

We believe that a person with an education not only improves his or her own life but also the lives of those around him. As Nelson Mandela once said, “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world”.

For more on LOHADA, visit www.lohada.org

We greatly appreciate all donations and no amount is too small.

Thank you!

The 2024 Volunteers

Dear Friends & Family,

What started at the beginning of last year as a group of friends and families wanting to teach our kids about hard work and empathy, has suddenly taken on a greater significance. This coming April, twenty-seven of us ranging from 11-75 years old will travel to Arusha, Tanzania to build a new dormitory, paint classrooms, and plant vegetable gardens for the 240+ disadvantaged children that LOHADA cares for and educates at Camp Joshua. The new dormitory will allow LOHADA to take in and educate more children, many of whom have lost one or both parents.

We've created this GoFundMe page to raise money to build “Neema’s House” - the new dormitory that will be dedicated to the memory of former Camp Joshua student, Neema Charles, a fifteen-year-old who passed away last December from osteosarcoma. The only way to overcome the misguided beliefs that kept Neema from conquering her cancer is better education. More on Neema’s story below.

We chose to focus our fundraising efforts on Lohada for several reasons:

We greatly appreciate all donations and no amount is too small.

Neema’s Story

The picture above of Neema was taken last February 2022 by a volunteer in our group. Neema passed away at only 15 years old this past December from osteosarcoma (bone cancer).

Neema was from a small village in the Tabora region of Tanzania where witchcraft still exists, curses are still believed in, girls are married off young, and education is not a priority - especially for girls. It was no small miracle that her parents were convinced by Happiness Wambura, founder of LOHADA & Camp Joshua, to allow her to move to Arusha at age 9 to start school. Her first year at our LOHADA school was also her first year of school.

Last June, Neema found a small lump on her knee that continued to grow. Although volunteers quickly raised the money for her to start chemotherapy, the doctors felt the cancer was spreading too quickly and recommended they amputate her leg in order to save her. They needed her parent's permission which proved an impossible task.

Unfortunately, her father is one of the many villagers who still believe that this kind of sickness is a curse, and would not consent to the surgery. And so, Neema watched her tumor grow to the size of a small watermelon before finally passing in December. Sadly, Neema’s parents believed that sending her off to be educated was the reason she received this "curse' and the local witch doctor suggested she be left to die in the forest to remove the curse from the rest of the family. Luckily, social workers intervened but in the end, it was too late and Neema died alone in a small room in her village with no medicine to relieve her pain and no family to comfort her.

Christening the new dormitory “Neema’s House" can’t change what happened to Neema - a complex maze of cultural differences that precluded her from getting the treatments that might have saved her - but it will provide 100 new beds at Camp Joshua for the neediest of the needy while allowing Neema’s memory to live on.

We believe that a person with an education not only improves his or her own life but also the lives of those around him. As Nelson Mandela once said, “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world”.

Please donate today to help us honor Neema’s memory and continue to educate the children of Tanzania.

For more on LOHADA, visit www.lohada.org

Or

Watch this video:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?fbclid=PAAabkHqvH78V8yZGUkJEKLDHWIyWQy7ZIz_gjc-G7BuhJqyOnMz0EgHbFvZI&v=xl9RnpOXszI&feature=youtu.be