Tanzania Orphans Upendo Community Inc - Touco

Our Vision:

To form a community of families, which provide a holistic psychosocial care of the orphans and vulnerable children, who are self-reliant productive citizens.

 Our Mission Statement:

 To provide a naturally empathic and holistic care to the orphans and vulnerable children (OVC) which is family based and capable of healing childhood abandonment traumas and at the same time build in the children the self confidence and self determination which they need for individuation. We are serious about training and educating, encouraging and instilling the confidence and self-esteem that the children need to excel in life.

Upendo is a Kiswahili word which means ‘charity/love’.

Orphans and vulnerable children need a loving family not an orphanage.

Tanzania Orphans Upendo community (TOUCO) consists of Upendo Families which are families consisting of 6 to 12 orphans between 3 and 12 years, who live under the care of a loving volunteer adult woman to help them grow to adulthood in a socially and psychologically safe and secure environment while acquiring social and economic survival skills.

After the age of 18 years, these young adults are assisted to start their own independent life.

ABOUT US.  Tanzania Orphans Upendo Community (TOUCO) is an umbrella name for all the Upendo Families. An Upendo Family consists between 6 and 12 orphans headed by a volunteer woman living with them under one household. Volunteer women are recruited on a voluntary basis without regular wages.

Currently TOUCO has two Upendo Families; one in Mafinga, Mufindi District; and the other in Uwemba, Njombe District; both in Iringa Region. Our future plans are to focus in Madeke area in Njombe while assisting villages with destitute orphans to create Upendo Families and accommodate as many orphans and vulnerable children as possible.

Upendo Family is a community based non discriminatory family structure which responds to Tanzania’s orphans ‘silent crises from the grassroots. It is modeled on the Tanzanian traditional extended family orphans care safety net system which has helped Africa survive most of the natural and human-made pandemics and catastrophes. Upendo (charity) is all it takes to create humanity from poverty, misery and destitution.  Tanzania Orphans Upendo Community (TOUCO) is a compassionate family structured care for the survival and prosperity of the OVC based on mutual empathy, respect and human dignity.

Tanzania Orphans Upendo Community (TOUCO) is modeled on the African communal affinity archetype with its extended community family care of the destitute, orphans and vulnerable children; and the Tanzanian Ujamaa (brotherhood) tradition. This resilient traditional orphan
care system which has made Africans survive against all odds of history like diseases, internecine wars, slavery and famines is currently being overwhelmed by the massive orphanhood engendered by malaria and AIDS. 

Currently more than 96 percent of the 3 million orphans in Tanzania are taken care by the community based extended family systems in which women and especially grandmothers are the most important caregivers. The massive numbers of the orphans and their needs, the age and health of most grandmothers and their economic status have the cumulative effect of overstretching and overburdening this longtime resilient traditional disaster safety net. It stands in need of an overhaul, modernization and synergy to meet the new challenges posed by HIV/AIDS patients and its resultant orphans and vulnerable children.

The community based extended family must be energized to function to the best of its capacity. The international community and the national governments do not recognize and fund this system in Tanzania as a whole although the system is the most appropriate psychologically and socially; and  the most cost effective economically.Tanzania Orphans Upendo Community (TOUCO) is an effort in rediscovering, empowering and capacity building of the extended family system to help it play its role and make Tanzanian orphans and vulnerable children survive the tsunamic social, psychological and emotional problems created by the HIV/AIDS pandemic.

A checkered family background is the breeding ground for future potential fatalistic suicide bombers and political dictators  Every child needs a family not an orphanage, to bloom and prosper to respect and be respected. We hope that the Tanzania Orphans Upendo Community is poised to contribute towards that goal.