It is with great joy that we can announce the birth of Golden, the baby boy of our Assistant Project Leader, Julieth Godwin. Golden, whose name is pronounced Gordon, was born on 2nd July and weighed 7.5 lbs. Both mum and Golden are doing very well and have been visited at home by Busega Scotland staff, to offer our congratulations.

Christine had the honour of being Julieth’s birthing partner and was up all night, with Golden being born just after four in the morning. While Julieth is on maternity leave, our Secretary, Kabula Peter, will hold some additional responsibilities, particularly for the Family Support Project and working with the younger children at Mayega.   Hongera, Julieth, and karibu sana, Golden!

John and Christine are back in their ‘second home’, as the Busega Scotland work goes on apace. Unusually, the Carneys did not travel directly to Mwanza but spent time with their family in Northern Tanzania. Starting out in Kilimanjaro district and then down through the Serengeti and Ngorongoro to Lake Victoria. The Tanzanian national parks are breath-taking and the Ngorongoro caldera is one of the real wonders of the world.

The news from our projects is also encouraging. All the boys who graduated as mechanics/drivers this year are in some form of employment. The school results for Mayega Children’s Centre pupils have been good and much preparatory work is underway to improve the water facilities in Mayega village. These are merely tasters, and further details will appear on the website over the next month – internet connection permitting!

There were troubled waters in the Mayega sub-village of Mikuyuni. As part of Phase 2 of the Mayega Water Project, the water distribution point (DP) at the village dispensary was planned to be shared with the families in the sub-village. Unfortunately, money got in the way! There was no way of calculating how much of the water used would be paid for by the dispensary and the amount that the families would be liable for.
Thankfully, Mayega District Council accepted that they should have foreseen the problem and committed themselves to resolve it. The Council has been good to its word and Mikuyuni now has its own DP.

The Mayega Water Project has benefitted greatly from the involvement of council staff. They have planned the water works, purchased the materials and managed the construction and installation. So much can be achieved by combining knowledge, skills and experience, and the Water Project is no exception. A very well done to the Council, Mayega village and, of course, Busega Scotland, who come together as the Mayega Water Group. They have delivered the first two project phases successfully and good progress is now being made in the plans for Phase 3.

The Mayega Water Day has taken place at Mosstowie Primary School in Moray, some 4,750 miles from Mayega village in Tanzania. Mosstowie is a small school with a big heart! After two talks to older pupils on the work of Busega Scotland, the school decided to hold a fun day and fundraiser for Mayega Children’s Centre.
The children at Mosstowie were surprised by their peers having to carry water from Lake Victoria, previously a prominent part of Mayega life. Not now, of course, as the Centre got a piped water supply last year.
Nevertheless, games with a water theme were invented, and all the Mosstowie pupils joined in. The centrepiece was a water carrying house competition, along with water balancing and drench your teachers! Christine joined in the balancing and John stood shoulder to shoulder with the Mosstowie staff in being drenched! Many thanks to headteacher Garry Forgie, his staff, parents and pupils for arranging and supporting the day.
For the record – Mosstowie has 71 pupils and 3 teachers whereas Mayega Primary School has 950 children and 11.5 teachers.

The fourth women’s group in the Family Support Project has admitted its final seven women, bringing the total number of Bujingwa members to thirty. We have now two complete groups in the town of Igombe (the birthplace of Family Support) and two more in the village of Chole. The groups in the two locations run very differently, reflecting the contrasting environments and local possibilities. In each case, the aim of Busega Scotland is to ‘let the groups fly’ and go forward independently, while holding onto their assets. This provides sustainability for the projects and an exit strategy for ourselves.

The Assistant Project Leader responsible for Family Support, Julieth Godwin, has started a period of maternity leave and is expecting her baby in July. We wish both mum and baby well and look forward to welcoming Julieth back to work later in the year. She is so important to the successful running of our women’s groups.
In Julieth’s absence, our secretary, Kabula Peter, made the business grants and vicoba (credit union) payments to the new Bujingwa women. While Julieth is away, Kabula will be covering some of her duties to ensure continuity in our services. She has been shadowing Julieth for a while, as part of the preparation for the expanded role.

The Busega Scotland website, under normal circumstances, only includes articles about our work in Tanzania and related matters. The one previous aberration was in 2018 when Scotland beat England at cricket. Completely understandable.
An equally momentous event happened on Saturday 1st June, when Liverpool beat Tottenham Hotspur to win the Champions League. John and Christine watched the match with family on Merseyside and then attended the homecoming on the Liverpool waterfront. Allez, allez, allez. A wonderfully multicultural crowd (estimated at 750,000) welcomed their team from many nations, in a typically tumultuous fashion. It was absolutely clear, that nobody in the Red family will ever walk alone.

It is not often that pupils get the opportunity to drench their teachers, but this will be happening at Mosstowie School during their upcoming Mayega Water Day. The privilege will cost £1 per pupil but many will surely think it a very good use of their pocket money. The event arose from two talks given at the school on the work of Busega Scotland. The children identified with their peers at Mayega having had to collect water from Lake Victoria (now happily a thing of the past) They worked with head teacher Garry Forgie on their fun filled event. John and Christine will be there and hope to remain dry, but neither are as quick on their feet as they used to be. Well, it is all in a good cause!

Busega Scotland’s reporting period to the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator (OSCR) runs from 1st December to 30th November. Before we make the OSCR submission the Annual Report and Accounts are signed off by our trustees at an Annual General Meeting. As part of OSCR regulations our accounts are externally verified.
We are pleased to advise that the regulator has accepted our annual return and the latest Annual Report and Accounts are on our website here .https://busegascotland.co.uk/annual-accounts/

If you wish to view the Busega Scotland page on the OSCR website, head to   https://www.oscr.org.uk/about-charities/search-the-register/charity-details?number=SC046101

Busega Scotland was represented at Turning Point Scotland’s Stakeholder day held at the Elgin Youth Café. The day explored the idea of citizenship as a local and global concept and our workshop discussed this in the context of Busega Scotland’s work. We get great support from Turning Point and our involvement in the Stakeholder day was us reciprocating their interest, as part our commitment to ‘give back’ to the community of Moray in whatever way we can.  The Quiz Night at the Drouthy Cobbler in Elgin on 24th May was attended by 4 teams from Turning Point who were the best represented organisation at the event. The quiz was won by a team from our local newspaper, the Northern Scot, and the individual prize for ‘Heads and Tails’ was a triumph for new Busega Scotland trustee Cenzo Main (definitely no corruption!). Over 60 people took part and £625 was raised for education at Mayega.

It has been all change in the school room at Mayega Children’s Centre. We have said goodbye to Saturday teacher Seba and hello to evening teacher Renidius.
Seba had been with us for two years, travelling on a Saturday from Mwanza to help primarily with English. He is about to be transferred to another school, as part of his regular employment. Sadly, he could no longer maintain his Mayega commitment and a farewell ceremony saw Seba given the honour of raising our new Tanzanian flag. The children were sad to see him go as his work has done much to start up a learning culture at Mayega.

Christine consulted about Seba’s replacement with Mayega Primary School head teacher, Ernesto Damiano. They devised a very imaginative plan. The new teacher would work mornings at the primary school and in the evenings at the Centre. This will more than double the time available to our children for extra help and tuition. Busega Scotland is paying the teacher’s salary and the school provides accommodation.

There were 20 applicants for the new teaching post. Renidius was appointed and has already started. He has a B.Ed. degree, specialising in Maths and Computer Science. He also has very good English and so brings with him the core skills that our children need. We wish him well in his new job and look forward to furthering improvements in the children’s attainment.