Our
Projects
DELIVER ON MANY FRONTS.
Interested about what’s happening?
Then enter your name here to receive our newsletter for ongoing status updates on our projects …
Since 2014 – step by step
Our successes ...
… are what motivates us!
Our projects ...
… lend many hands that are urgently needed.
…March 4th, 2022 saw Dietmar Schirge and Paul Blecker present our health centre with further equipment on behalf of Aachen-based charity Pangea e.V.; they topped up this donation with some self-funded pharmacy purchases.
The posto sanitário now has a septic-fluid suction pump that had been requested by its nurse, Caetano Delgado. And the inhalation device, which is past its prime, can also be replaced…
…Due to the pandemic, numerous initiatives and projects are inactive, have been delayed or will even have to be abandoned altogether. One regrettable example is the creation of a vegetable garden for our primary school, despite the fact that it is needed now more than ever. This is because the school is – with the aid of funding from Luxembourg – to receive a new mains water supply and…
…We at ‘Dar as Mãos’ have also put in place our own emergency response, since Tarrafal and its two neighbouring communities are ‘at the back of beyond’ and there is great need for food aid. Our initial response involved spending €1,500 at a wholesaler’s in Porto Novo…
…Barely 10 days later, on Monday, 23 September, the Year 1 to 6 pupils took up their places in the primary school’s three classrooms. To help them get off to a good start we gave each child with a ‘starter kit’ consisting of three exercise books, pencil, sharpener and rubber…
…In recent months, much of our effort has gone into the continuation and further development of our educational-support project under which, in the past year, we were able (for the first time) to offer help to all pupils above primary level. In September 2018, we launched the second of our ‘Join In’ campaigns – aimed at financially assisting secondary-school pupils…
…This year, once again, the dentists of Spanish NGO ‘SMILES’ braved the bumpy road and found their way here. This third working visit by a dental team – led by Dr Oliver Siebelist – took place from 29 July to 12 August and was made possible by ‘Dar as Mãos’ in cooperation with Porto Novo’s municipal authority….
…There is tremendous news to report from our first major initiative with a broad impact: the ‘Join In!‘ campaign no. 1 – our way of seeking support for Tarrafal’s secondary-school pupils who, during term-time, have to live on the other side of Santo Antão or on the neighbouring island of São Vicente….
…In a joint effort with our Delegação Municipal (the village committee) and several private donors from Tarrafal, DaM has made it possible for bathrooms to be built for each of three families in the district of Agostinho Pereira (on the far side of ribeira (river), on the way to Monte Trigo). In all three households there are disabled family members…
Health
Our story began with a simple aim – to obtain first-aid equipment for our village. Then came bandages, two stretchers, medication and a ventilator. These were followed by a range of diagnostic equipment, an intravenous drip stand, orthopaedic splints, forceps and various other small items, a defibrillator and a medical emergency kit. A private donor also contributed a vacuum mattress (or vacmat) for immobilizing and transporting patients … Our health centre is now undoubtedly the best equipped in the whole of Cape Verde!
But we’re not satisfied with that – we’re continuing to ensure we are stocked with medical supplies and equipment. And if we get anything that we already have, it is passed on to health centres in other villages.
In conjunction with an association called SMILES, in 2016, 2017 and 2018 we organized working visits (each lasting two weeks) by a large dental team from Spain. During each of these years, several hundred patients were treated, not only in Tarrafal, but also in other remote villages in the surrounding hill country and in the capital of our administrative district, Porto Novo.
On three occasions, a general practitioner from Germany also came here for a working visit, supporting the team at the health centre.
Public healthcare provision of this kind is limited to a monthly visit by a physician (but still – up until June 2021 it was only one visit every three months), and so having a doctor here for a longer period is a great luxury. For day-to-day medical care needs, a team led by our head nurse – and also including his assistant and a receptionist – is in place.
Assistance for pupils and students
For us, educational support is an issue that comes a close second to that of sufficient healthcare provision. Right from the start, providing the children of the local primary school with educational supplies is something we have done from time to time. Additionally, for five years now (since 2017), secondary-school pupils have received monthly financial assistance from us. This is because, from Year 8 onwards, they have to live on the other side of our island or even on the neighbouring island – the only school we have here being a primary school.
The secondary-school pupils and tertiary-education students that we support make up the bolseiros DaM (‘DaM Scholarship Holders’) youth group. During the school holidays, we get our bolseiros involved in various projects, such as organizing and holding a flea market with donated items, or holding litter picks in the village and on the beach. If possible, we arrange weekend seminars or workshops in the summer holidays – an example being events exploring environmental and climate action in conjunction with the ‘Young Talent’ organization.
School holiday workshops
In each of the last two years, we have invited the young people from the ‘Young Talent’ organization in our district capital of Porto Novo to visit us during the school holidays. They spend a weekend with our bolseiros exploring different aspects of climate change and, in particular, the protection of our oceans. ‘Young Talent’ encourages promising musicians, and so music plays a key role in our joint workshops (which even resulted in production of a single by the participants themselves). There are also talks, discussions and other shared activities such as litter picks and mural-painting.
Food donations
Almost all families in Tarrafal are suffering from considerable losses in income due to the coronavirus. Since the pandemic started, we have – four times to date – presented families who are economically hardest hit with a cesta basica (‘basic basket’). These contain staple foodstuffs and other supplies, and are distributed not only in Tarrafal, but also in our neighbouring communities in the plateau region, where families – some of them very poor – make a living from shepherding.
We received a lot of support in this from the Pangea e.V. association, which has covered the lion’s share of costs for the second and subsequent of these care packages.
Contribution to construction projects
We are also contributing financially to some small construction projects in the community that seem worthy of our support. These include neighbourhood assistance projects carried out themselves by a group of residents (a public square to serve as a meeting place, repair of rural roads, construction works at the primary school (toilets, school playground), and, in exceptional cases, help for needy families with particular hardships (e.g. a bathroom in a house where several family members have disabilities). In these cases, we contribute by providing some of the necessary materials (e.g. a number of bags of cement, or paint).
…The first newsworthy happening of the new year was a medical working visit: on Sunday, 14 January, our head nurse Flávio Bento and DaM presidente Jailson set off together to visit the inhabitants of Bolona, a mountain village. It took them just under an hour, negotiating the bends of…
…We have started a ‘mapping of necessities’ study intended to identify the most pressing essentials for Tarrafal’s inhabitants, so we know the most important things they lack and where the need for action is greatest. The idea is that this will help us decide …
…On International Children’s Day (1 June), DaM once again had a treat in store for the village’s children, handing out a present to each one of them at both the nursery and the primary schools. Our chair Jailson Carvalho and Crisaulinda Teixeira, the office intern at our ‘headquarters‘…
…Our health unit, the posto sanitário, welcomed another new arrival in February: a dentist’s chair! And not any old dentist’s chair, but a very special one – it was the very first in Cape Verde! This collector’s item belonged to the family of Aníbal Lopes in São Vicente…
…The milestone of official registration and recognition as a non-profit organization by the tax office in Porto Novo has been passed –- on 28 September a proclamation appeared in the official journal and on 12 November an official declaration of our status as …
…In Burgwedel near Hanover, eight of the people who have taken up the cause of Tarrafal in Germany formed a supporting organization, the ‘Friends of Dar as Mãos’ (German: Förderverein Dar as Mãos). This is a big step in many ways: we are networking more intensively with each …
…On 30 March, Cape Verde’s prime minister José Maria officially opened our newly renovated health centre. As the Ministry of Health funded this effort, the health minister – Maria Cristina Fontes Lima – attended, along with a number of other politicians. What’s more…
…The fundraising campaign by Dr Friedrich Doerr, which marked the start of our entire initiative, was a tremendous success both financially – an incredible €2,750 was raised – and also as a contribution to our health centre that brought us a quantum leap further forward….
