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.

Correction! Please note talk is on Tuesday 14.5.19!

Thanks to Whilton Mill Go Karting and Outdoor Activities, for providing the top prize at the Daventry Quiz night held at St Augustine’s Church Hall,  with the proceeds shared between  Busega Scotland and Amnesty International . Thank you to Robin and Debbie Hill for organising the event with their friends.

Keeping children safe at Mayega Children’s Centre is Busega Scotland’s number one priority. This requires action in various ways and involves different people helping to protect the children effectively.
We have already built a perimeter fence at the centre and worked directly with the children on keeping themselves safe, using a DVD in Swahili commissioned by Busega Scotland volunteers, Robin and Debbie Hill.The new kitchen at Mayega has a storeroom at one end and this provided an opportunity for safe storage of the solar batteries. A seminar between Busega Scotland staff and health officials from Busega District Council has seen the purchase of fire buckets, rubbish bins and white aprons for the cooks.

These may seem like small steps, but in the evolution of the care of the children we are now able to concentrate on matters of detail, as the general quality of care has improved so much.

Busega Scotland responded to the recent abuse scandals, involving larger aid organisations, by producing its own safeguarding policy and procedures. The implementation plan is being overseen by the Board of Trustees, and on their last visit to Tanzania John and Christine commenced a series of implementation seminars with local staff. T he 5-a-day is being helped by an ever productive garden at the Centre.