At its meeting on 27th November 2023, the Rotary Club of Port Fairy welcomed guests - Seif Sakata and Martin Dunstan from the Bandari project.
In introducing Martin, Seif recognised the long-standing relationship between Bandari and the Rotary club as it was Rotary that first helped Seif get started on providing support to the children in his home town of Mto Wambu in Tanzania.
In those early days, the Club helped send the first batch of support equipment to Tanzania and also had some of our Club's members pioneer visits to MtoWambu to start the first building project.
Martin Dunstan has been with Bandari since inception and is the current President. He delivered an enlightening presentation showcasing just how far the Bandari project has progressed in the intervening years.
The school now has 140 students and 16 staff - comprising 8 teachers, a chef, a cattle manager, security officer and bus driver. Martin showed pictures of the original cookhouse and then the modern, large dining room that services the school children. An overview photo of the complete development of the school showcased the many buildings that have now been established.
The school covers Prep through to Grade 6 and has returned some strong academic achievement with the standout being their ranking of first out of 80 schools in the region for their Grade 4 teaching and learning program.
The school is also developing welfare programs and branching out into special education for disadvantaged student which includes sewing classes. Their social welfare program is also tackling issues of malnutrition, abuse and neglect that is common in many of the children's households. In this regard, there is a now a growing need to employ a dedicated social worker.
Martin outlined some of the project's challenges - and programs aimed to tackle these - including water management, security and distribution. farming enterprises to provide better yield from their cattle, and sustainable crop management.
In summarising, Martin outlined the fact that, although the support from the Port Fairy community has been pivotal in the initial setup of the Bandari project, the project's current needs has all but out-grown the level of support that Port Fairy alone can provide - both in monetary terms and people. In recognising this, the Bandari Board is taking steps to setup a Bandari Foundation so that interest earnings from capital funds can sustain the current annual turnover cost of $150K. In this regard, he estimated that a foundation of around $3M would be needed to sustain the project. Of course, additional funding from a variety of sources, including sponsors, grants, bequests will also assist future development.
In closing, Martin displayed a photo of the plaque and tree that has been placed in Mto Wambu in acknowledgement of the tremendous support that was provided in the developmental years by former Rotarian, and now deceased, Geoff Coxall.
