Upendo is an orphanage maintained by Catholic nuns in Moshi. In the orphanage, there are 28 workers and 46 children. The youngest children are infants and the oldest are under 7 years old. Most of the children have been abandoned by their parents. Some of the kids are handicapped and they need special care since the local workers don’t have enough time for them.
In the Upendo Orphanage there is also a nursery school for the kids and a school for the nursery school teachers. Upendo orphanage doesn’t get any kind of financial support from the public sector which means that it fully depends on private donations and supporters. The orphanage maintains a farm on which it keeps pigs, cows and chickens to earn more money for the orphanage and provide food for the children.
The working day in Upendo starts around 9 o’clock in the morning and ends when the kids are going to the nap around 1pm. Because the orphanage is situated very near to TVL-house it is possible to go back to work in the afternoon when the kids has woke up. The daily program in the orphanage contains playing with the kids, changing their diapers and clothes and feeding them.
In the nursery school the kids are learning numbers, alphabets, colors, days of the week, months, greetings, reading, writing and other skills needed in the primary school. Upendo orphanage offers internship placements for students on the social field.
The interns are allowed to wear their own clothes while working in Upendo, but shoulders, stomach and knees need to be covered all the time. Skirts or trousers that come below your knees and tshirts are allowed.
