Foster Mission

Introduction
FOSTER (Fransalian Organisation for Social Transformation, Education and Renewal) was established to assist street children or children who live in a vulnerable environment by providing them with holistic rehabilitation. It is a project of the Missionaries of St. Francis de Sales (Fransalians). It seeks to provide them with shelter, medical treatment, proper hygine, clothing, counseling, school education, skills training, recreational facilities, family reunification, public awareness and child rights advocacy. Children who have nowhere else to go, can come to live in our home (St. Francis de Sales Children’s Home).

Our Vision
To provide care, attention, a safe and conducive environment, and quality education to children who is deprived of it .

Our Mission
We take care of abandoned children, give them what they are need of.
We help the children to discover themselves, their inborn talents and powers, so that they can develop them.
We pursue the children to follow the path of peace, joy, and social harmony.
We propagate and practice children’s rights.
We rehabilitate the street children, the orphans, and the poverty stricken children.
  1. Foster: SFS Children’s Home (S.F.S Nyumba ya Watoto) - Integral develop for the street children and orphans
    St. Francis de Sales Children’s Home was begun as a response to the growing demands of the society in Tabora to take care of the increasing number of abandoned children.

    The main cause of the rapidly increasing number of street children in Tabora is AIDS. Most of these children have relatives, but in most cases their extended families do not have the financial means to care for them properly.
    Illegitimate children are another important abandoned group. As infants, these children are raised by their unmarried mothers. When their mother gets married later on, however, and moves to another place with her new partner, she often leaves her child behind with her family.

    There is also an increasingly large group of children who run away from their maternal and paternal parents’ homes because they are being ill-treated, or because the living conditions at home are so bad due to extreme poverty that these children think, initially, that they can do better elsewhere.

    If they do not earn enough to fill their stomachs, they wander the streets in search of food. They look in the rubbish, beg for leftovers at restaurants, or pick up discarded food off the streets. Most of these children are malnourished. A lot of them have never been to school or received any form of education.

    SFS Children’s Home by means of its multifaceted ministries strives to form these children, by providing them with education and motivation for a settled life.

    Our ministry at S.F.S Children’s Home involves four functions.
    More than 200 orphan or street children are directly taken care.
    1. Residential Rehabilitation Programme
      35 children reside at the center. They are provided with food, shelter, clothing, education, medication, training in arts, sports, acrobatics, dances, personality development etc Most of them are doing the primary school studies 8 of them doing secondary school studies
    2. Drop in Programme
      45 children daily visit our center for tuitions, food, bath etc. We help them also with educational equipments. These children are from the Leper’s Colony, orphans; or physically or mentally retarded children.
    3. Village Sponsoring Programme
      Nearly 120 needy children (mostly orphans) are assisted to go to school in three places, Itaga, Igambilo, Migangoni and Ipuli. They are provided with educational equiments and medication. We visit their houses and schools to promote their growth. All of them attend primary schools.
    4. Awareness Making Programme
      Arrange Anti HIV/AIDS seminars in the schools; Conduct programmes to advocate child rights; conduct competitions for children to motivate them to excel.

  2. St. Francis de Sales Mission School - Moulding the modern generation
    We founded an English Medium Primary School in 2006 for the poor, orphaned and ordinary children of the society. Through this ministry we are giving quality education to the children of Tabora and also it is an occasion for the street children and the orphan children to grow together with children of the normal families. Thus they are given opportunities for integral development. At present there are 570 children studying in the school.

  3. Foster: Fransalian Furaha Project for the Blind People - Self Reliance for the Blind
    The project runs well with 8 blind youth and nearly 10 staff members. Soon some more blind youth will join the project.

Our Future Concerns
  1. Foster: SFS Girls Home - Empower the girl child
    We plan to start a separate home for the abandoned or orphaned girls with the help of the sisters of St. Joseph of Annecy. It will begin to function from February 2009.


  2. Foster: Secondary/Technical Education - Witnessing the growth
    At present our senior children attend secondary schools at SFS Seminary and High School - Morogoro, Mihao Secondary School - Tabora and Isevya Secondary School, Tabora. We plan to build a secondary school in Ipuli. it can offer quality education to all the deserving children of our other primary school in this area Kagongwa, Isaka and Bukene. In these schools hundreds of poor and orphan children are educated. There are also children who are backward in academic performance at the same time they do well in vocational skills such as Automobiles, Carpentry, Electronics, Computer Studies etc. So we also plan to have a vocational training programme.
    The Secondary School need to be functioning from 2011. Establishment of a secondary school calls for a huge financial investment and that of qualified personal. At present we are at the look out for finance for this purpose.

  3. Foster: A Bigger Children's Home - More space to grow better
    The present building where the children are accommodated was built for initially for a church and later converted into a hospital. In 2002 it was made a Children’s Home. We look for bigger place to accommodate more children in need. Children need sufficient space to play, work and study.

  4. Foster: Social Settlement Programme - Faithful partners, joyful family
    After their studies they will have to settle in life, in a good family. We help them to be responsible, creative, efficient and warm-hearted citizens of East Africa.

Conclusion
Foster aims at total development of the children or people who are placed in difficult situations. Through our various ministries we make an effort to bring hope, peace and joy in the lives of many who other wise have been on the brink of despair. We cannot go forward without your help. We wholeheartedly welcome you to join us to create s new world of Hope.


Many Street Children and Orphans are:
  • Orphans - because of disease and conflict
  • Separated from families - because of domestic violence and every kind of abuse
  • ILL - through HIV/Aids passed on congenitally, or through unprotected sex. Malnutrition severely affects their growth and resistance to tropical diseases such as malaria, which kills over one million Africans a year
  • Stigmatised - they live on the edge of society
  • Uneducated - they have no access to schooling
  • Abused - they are at best seen as a 'nuisance', at worst beaten by police and those in authority
  • Anonymous - they have no birth registration documents, no health cards, and no identity within their community
Many street children and orphans are:
  • Ambitious - they have dreams and aspirations to do well
  • Tough - Surviving in the roughest of environments
  • Resilient - you have to be able to survive on your own and rely on no one.