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Hope mushrooms as we sing to the dawn

This article is from page 24 of the 2007-11-06 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 24 JPG

THERE is an old Chinese proverb which says, “Faith is the bird that sings to the dawn while it is still dark.” While the people of Clare are suffering from the winter chill, there are some small changes happening here in Pemba that would warm your hearts.

One of the most outstanding adven- tures that we have been involved in over the past few months has been the setting up of a mushroom grow- ing project at the Catholic Mission.

Gathering together all the recent donations we had received from home, we entrusted the money into the capable hands of Fr Filbert, our young, enthusiastic Tanzanian parish priest. Without this money nothing could have started.

He gathered together a motley crew of 20 people including the elderly, young school dropouts, people living

with HIV/AIDS, Muslims, Angli- cans and Catholics. They all have the shared experience of being poor and unemployed.

After a weekend of training ,they all worked together to set up sim- ple seed germinating rooms, dark rooms and growing sheds. Now, just a month later, the seeds are bearing fruit and visitors are coming from far and wide to marvel at the miracle of oyster mushrooms growing out of plastic bags.

People are getting their first-ever taste of this new food and the tourist hotels on the island are queuing up to buy the product.

But that’s not the whole story. There is a spin-off from this little bit of suc- cess. Our local government minister came to visit and brought a gift of three sewing machines so that the women can now learn new skills.

The managers of two of the hotels have come, asking to employ some

of our unemployed youth. Fr Filbert and Nunuu, a young Islamic woman, have been invited to co-present a lunchtime talk to the Rotary Club in Dar es Salaam and there is a general air of excitement around the place. The refreshing wind of change is blowing in the life of the commu- nity and people have a few shillings

jingling in their pockets. Success breeds success. This week there is the launch of a small organic garden at the mission and there are plans afoot to start a bee-keeping project.

So like the mushrooms, the people of Wete are stirring and developing. Confidence is growing and the dark- ness of depression is beginning to lift. Thank you to the generous peo- ple of Ireland for making this possi- ble and may you continue to “sing to the dawn”.

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