Happy New year!
Warm greetings from Sibusiso! It is yet another year, another opportunity to change lives, develop and improve our services as a center. We reopened on 10th January, after the usual Christmas holidays. Our 3 months group program is up and running with all the 30 children admitted. After a whole year of girls, this year comes with boys in the 6 months group; 18 in boarding and 7 in the day scholar program.
Being the sports period, our football, athletics and volleyball teams are already psyching up for the upcoming competitions. Due to our well known competence and track record in these sports, our volleyball team has got a straight pass to represent Arusha region in the regional competitions with only two additions from other teams in the entire region. The football team has professional volunteers from Future Stars Academy hence we expect better results this year. Future Stars has produced most of the players in the local leagues, and already two of our children have already been selected by teams in the second and third divisions in Tanzanian football. Therefore, this partnership is a big win for us. We have new exciting programs like acrobatics, yes acrobatics, this is not only for the physical part of it, but also for the confidence, the entertainment and the satisfaction of achieving it. Our children enjoy it, three are already attached to one of the local acrobatic groups, and are making a living out of it. We do hope 2022 will be as successful as 2021, hopefully more, as there is a lot in store.
As a sign that we have grown as an organization, we are finally realizing the dream for a knowledge center this year. We, as Sibusiso feel that we have come a long way, 20 years, we have learnt a lot along the way, we have developed our programs in different ways, but above all, we have achieved way way much more and it is about time that we support others in achieving what we have done. For a few years now, this plan has been in the oven, and it is finally fully baked. The plan is to train other organizations or people already working or willing to work with people with mental disabilities, equip them with the necessary knowledge so as we can reach as many as possible, with the most effective and efficient services. The training team will leave Arusha on 20th in a bid to visit all regions, to do awareness of our programs, meet government officials in the field of disabilities, meet other institutions, know who is doing what and what is meaning. It is a huge learning opportunity, am sure we will develop a lot more after this, it is expected that after this, specific trainings at Sibusiso will follow for different departments. As we grow in numbers of children, our family of staff has grown immensely this year too- we have beefed up our team with 8 more professionals in different fields, we are confident that this additional experience will make a great impact in the lives of our children. We look forward to having you on board this year, and as always, we can never thank you enough for being part of our beautiful family, be rest assured that we are because of the push we get from you. On behalf of all our children, and their families: Asante sana, let us make 2022 bigger and better!