Jim Vanderheyden

Chair and Founder

Tanzania Life Project

You can read more about our goals in the News Center page of the website.

I just wanted to give you a quick bird’s eye view of things at this point in time. We are still a relatively young organization – just beginning our 4th year of operation.

However, we have turned the corner in many ways already. We have stabilized our operating plans over this time, and continue to grow at a swift pace! In addition to our home office here in Osseo, Minnesota, our board approved the opening of our branch office in mid 2007, – called an NGO, in the middle of Tanzania, in the city of Dodoma. The poor villages we work in, surround this central city. We have 2 wonderful people from that area working on our behalf, operating out of this office, and are about to hire a third person to help. We are also in the process now of finalizing plans to double the size of our initial office of about 120 square feet, to about 265 feet. Once a year – every September – we spend 2 weeks in Dodoma and the surrounding village area, reviewing what has been accomplished in the past year, and developing plans for what we will be doing in the next 12 month period. We then return and conduct our annual board meeting in late October where, after very much discussion, our board approves the final agreed-upon plan and budget for the coming year.

We are at a pace now, where we have 2 fund drives each year, to support the needs. Very early this year, we were certified by the Charities Review Council after setting ourselves up such that, our operations now meet all 16 different accountability standards on a continuing basis, as set by the council, on which to gage the credibility of non-profits. You can find out more about this by clicking on their seal just below. That will take you to their website on the Smart Givers Network, where they have summarized our mission and explain these 16 standards we have met.

One more item. Abbott Labs is now a partner of ours in the fight against HIV/AIDS. We have just completed a one year pilot program with them at a level of $10,000. After they came and reviewed our work, we have just received a $20,000 grant from them to enhance this very detailed program for 2009 which is now covering 120 victims and 60 orphans of victims.

Just to give you an idea, our office staff in Dodoma has now set up a file to put messages in from people who visit them. In just the past 10 months or so, we now have a list of 15 villages that have applied for help, with their needs for clean water and other support as well. So you can see, the need here, is virtually endless, as you might expect. We visited 3 of these villages and had to pick only one that we will start in, as we are still finishing work in the past 2 villages. We hope to help 5 villages in 10 years, now starting on village # 3. To get a glimpse of the geography in this area, we have made a sketch map (see below), locating all of the 3 villages (in blue).  Click on any of the blue villages to see what's happening!!!

We hope you will take this opportunity to visit the other portions of our beautiful website. We are constantly trying to improve it as we go, to make it easier to get the message to you about what is going on over there. You are most welcome to join us on this wonderful venture, with your prayers, your physical presence, and/or your financial help. You can even DONATE NOW on our website!

Jim Vanderheyden

Tanzania Life Project

12 - 6th Street NE, #108

Osseo, MN 55369

Phone: 763-493-9107

charity@tanzanialifeproject.org