cuidado de la salud
TOBFC coopera con los gobiernos locales y distritales para brindar educación infantil de calidad a las comunidades rurales.
TOBFC ha establecido 30 jardines de infancia Montessori (cada uno un "Aula Casa") y ha completado la construcción de 17 edificios escolares Montessori, para niños que de otro modo no tendrÃan una educación "formal". Actualmente, más de 2000 niños están inscritos en el jardÃn de infantes Montessori en estas escuelas. Brindamos a nuestras escuelas anualmente nuevos materiales para sus Casa Classrooms y capacitación experta para los tanzanos que enseñan en estas escuelas. Además, TOBFC implementa iniciativas de salud para los niños registrados en las escuelas, que incluyen campañas de lavado de manos, desparasitación y antifúngico.
Nuestro Programa Montessori es único ya que se asocia con cada comunidad para fomentar la inversión y el apoyo de la comunidad, lo que garantiza su éxito. Para construir una escuela en su comunidad, los lÃderes de la comunidad deben acercarse a TOBFC y hacer una solicitud para el programa Montessori. La comunidad debe proporcionar una estructura inicial y/o un terreno donde TOBFC pueda construir una escuela. Una vez que se establece, la comunidad es responsable de formar un comité escolar de miembros. Ese comité luego selecciona a un maestro y decide cuál será la contribución de la comunidad al salario del maestro (1000-3000TSH/por familia). Además, la comunidad contribuye en la construcción de la escuela, ya sea participando en la construcción o trabajando para proporcionar materiales para la construcción. TOBFC cubre todos los demás costos adicionales asociados con la escuela, incluido el resto del salario del maestro, muebles y materiales de aprendizaje para las Casa Aulas.
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Why TOBFC Started the Better Fuel Choices Program
Many households, especially those led by vulnerable women, continue to use wood fuels to prepare meals because they cannot afford to purchase cooking stoves and tanks that use cleaner fuels. Other families have found the lack of access to gas tanks prevents them from switching from wood to gas cooking. Our community research reveals that a family of four uses the equivalent of 20 large trees per year for cooking.
Collecting and cooking with wood fuel contributes to environmental degradation but also has many other negative impacts on women’s health, ability to work and food security. Vulnerable women spend hours every week securing firewood or charcoal. Women must then spend more hours preparing wood fires and cooking – time that could be used instead for engaging in business or agricultural activities. Long cooking times and access to wood fuel make it difficult for mothers to provide breakfast for students before they go to school, resulting in many missed meals and impacting educational success.
Our Mobile Medical Clinic connects to hundreds of women every year suffering from pulmonary diseases. Burning wood and charcoal creates particle pollution and releases toxic air pollutants. Fine particles can trigger heart attacks, stroke, irregular heart rhythms, and heart failure. Our Mobile Medical Clinic also serves many women with eye issues, including acute conjunctivitis and cataracts linked to cooking with wood. The types of chronic conditions that women experience from cooking with wood and charcoal convinced our staff that TOBFC needed to start an education program for all women and communities on the benefits of cooking with gas and to help vulnerable women switch.
Through our other Community Care programs, TOBFC identifies female-headed households that are using firewood and charcoal for cooking and connects them to the Better Fuel Choices program. These vulnerable women are supplied with a new gas cooking stove and gas tank and trained how to safely use the stove. Women using these new stoves report better health and many also find it more affordable, once the capital cost of the stove is overcome.​
Some families in rural communities can afford the purchase of a gas cooking stove, but the lack of stores to refill gas tanks can be a barrier to purchasing new stoves. To improve access to gas tank refills, TOBFC now operates two Kutunza Gas Stores that are centrally located for a number of villages.
Once vulnerable women are provided with gas stoves and tanks through the Kutunza Gas Store program and there is easier access to tanks for rural communities, gas cooking is sustainable for almost all families. It is estimated that shifting a total of 2,000 households to gas will save approximately 40,000 trees per year.
Better Fuel Choices directly addresses a key environmental issue and through that action helps to tackle complex community challenges. This Climate Care program also contributes to supporting gender equity, women’s health, and financial and food security for families.