Tanzania 'elders a forgotten people'

Síofra Grant

The 20-strong group of Tanzanian Heavenly Homes volunteers who travelled there this year are back home now after two weeks of working to assist elderly people in the village of Mto Wa Mbu.

Founder of the charity, John McCauley said: “It was one of the best groups I ever had. I couldn’t talk highly enough about the group this year and a lot of them want to go back next year.”

The group and John spent 15 days working with the residents of Senior Hope, a charity for older people in the Mto Wa Mbu community who are often neglected.

“Being elderly in Africa is a bad time in your life,” said John. “Most charities from Europe and America go in to help children – which is fine, I’ve done that too – but the elders are just a forgotten people.”

That is not the case in every African country but Tanzania experiences higher rates of poverty. The country has a population of more than 55 million and in 2018, according to the World Bank, 26% of people were living below the poverty line. That statistic is improving, however, thanks in part to charities like Heavenly Homes. Conditions have changed a lot since John started his work in Mto Wa Mbu in 2012 at a time when almost 50% of the population was living in poverty.

“We have 20 elders living there now in a beautiful retirement home we built, and Mullingar surrounding areas paid for it.

“And each of them got a present this year. We got their names and their clothing sizes and each got a personal present, which we’ve never done before.

“The joy on their faces when they opened up their own little parcels was a lovely thing to see. They felt there was somebody that did care about them.”

This year John arranged a special trip: “We took them out of their village by bus, a lot of them hadn’t been on a bus in years, to a place that’s sort of like Belvedere, for dinner. There was music and they were sitting there clapping. Some of my friends were with them they were feeding them or helping them walk from A to B, so they had a great day out.”

John and Heavenly Homes are now building Senior Hope 2, which will provide housing to a further 16 elders in the area. Construction is almost complete and it should be finished later this year. There is another, larger, quest: free healthcare. “We have a doctor now, Dr Eddie and he’s a local man. I got speaking to him and he’s very caring, he looks after all the elders living with us for free.

“So we’re planning for him to go out and take in a circle of about 300 people, over 60s, and they will get medicine. In Tanzania, when an elderly person goes to hospital, they get a prescription for a pain in their knee or whatever, but they have no money. Often they will suffer in agony for the rest of their life, it might only take six weeks to cure, but they will suffer because they can’t afford the medicine.

“So we have a plan with Dr Eddie that he will take that on board and we’re hoping 300-400 people get free medicine.”

John’s passion for the people in Mto Wa Mbu is clear. This year’s trip to the area was his 15th. He encourages anyone who is even slightly interested in these elders to volunteer and join the next trip.

“You need to travel,” he urges, “You need to travel to see it. It’s different here, if you lose your job in the morning, you have social welfare to keep you going and if you have a family or kids, you get further allowance. But out there, there’s nothing, no social welfare. You either work or you starve. These elderly people can’t work, they’re not able to, and so they have to sit around and hope a neighbour will give them a little bit of rice.

“That would be their meal for the day. The group we have now get three meals a day, they have hot showers, a lovely bed, a toilet, and they’re looked after by a doctor for free.”

In a world that is becoming more and more divided, John believes that making an effort to help others is more important than ever. “It’s something people should see and do for themselves, and see there’s another side to this materialistic world. There are people suffering and we have everything on this side of the world, we have all the services. We’ll never go hungry because there’s so many services.

“We’re all human, we’re all the same, and the colour of our skin makes no difference or what religion we were born by, because we’re still all human beings.”