On this weeks show we interview Noelah Msuya, Founder and Director of Child Support Tanzania, an not-for-profit organisation based in Mbeya which promotes educational inclusion through their early childhood development centre and a range of activities with local schools and communities. Noelah tells us why real inclusion matters and how she has coped with leading a growing change making project alongside being a Mum.

TOPICS WE DISCUSS IN THIS EPISODE

• How to get started fundraising for your Change Making project
• What you need to have in place in order to persuade someone to give you money
• How to go about proving what you have done with money you have been given
• Starting small and using your network to test and prove your idea.
• How cultures of giving vary

Some quotes from the show:

‘You need to be able to describe exactly what you want to do before you go anywhere asking for money.’

‘My biggest concern is how people are accountable, that the money is used according to the business plan’

You need to have a detailed plan – to really know what you are going to do and be able to explain it to anyone you meet’

‘Do your research about funders properly. Send them what they ask for tailored for them. Make it clear that you know who they are’

‘to stand out you need a compelling story about the difference you want to make.’
‘get your first money from people you know who have faith in you.’

‘My number one recommendation if you are starting a charitable project would be to raise the first money you need from people you know who have faith in you’

TOPICS WE DISCUSS IN THIS EPISODE

• Lily tells us about how she gave up her job to start this project to provide education to children from the informal settlement
• We talk about how her vision has grown from the five children she originally wanted to help in 2003 to the hundreds, including many disabled children, whose lives have been changed since
• Lily explains to us how she accidentally became a passionate advocate for inclusion
• We talk about the challenge of gathering resrouces for this kind of work – and why passion is what matters in the end
• We also hear what Lily has learnt in the process of developing and expanding the project
• And she gives us her advice about getting your own change making project started as well.

Some quotes from the show:

‘The needs of children an informal settlement are more than education, that was why we called it an early childhood development centre’
‘The main challenge is being able to get enough resources to provide the kind of services that the kids need because the majority of their parents are struggling to pay rent and put food on the table’

‘I mobilised my friends and we sat down as a committee and all the ones who were thinking I was crazy are now the ones I put on the committee and said we can do something’

‘We thought we were going to work with five children but the number of kids was growing everyday’

‘I looked at my child and I asked myself, if this set up was meant for my own child, what would I provide for them?’

‘The project is a collaboration between little rock, the child and the parents’

‘After the post election violence the parents had begged you to keep the school open because it was the safest place for their children, I always remember that’

‘There is no way you can teach a hungry child and you cannot teach a sick child, so the porridge and the lunch really is a boost for them’

‘Even if a mother or father walks in and they have nothing, their children are fed’

‘Biggest lesson is the joy and the opportunity that the children have got’

‘A number of the kids have been able to go to high school including three kids admitted to national schools because of their grades’

‘We simply spend our door to disabled children and said please come, we are ready to welcome you, we are ready to communicate with you and provide your child with quality early childhood education which was our mandate and our core business’

‘In 2006 a mother brought her child to the centre and we realised that the child was not able to walk so we asked ourselves if this was my child, what answers would I expect from the other side and so we accommodated her daughter who had cereal palsy in to our set up’

‘Our classrooms our inclusive we do not segregate the kids and have a special unit, we put all the kids in the classroom and they are learning together. So we have become advocates of inclusion.’

Connect with Lily
Little Rock Website: littlerockkenya.org
Little Rock Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LittlerockKenya/
You can also find a few different interviews with Lily on You Tube by searching for Little Rock Kenya there!