Question 3. How will the vehicle be used? (please include outline intinerary pla showing where it would go, how frequently and how many people would use it over a 3 month period)

Answer: Our first vehicle was donated 5 years ago by the "Central Gospel Mission" a church in Nelson when we had less than 10 children. We now have 36 children and have outgrown the capacity of our 10 seater long wheelbase Landrover. We expect that by next spring we will have approx 50 orphaned children in our care and hope to eventually cater for upwards of a 100.

The new vehicle would share the work which is now being done by our old Land rover.

As you know Tanzania is the third poorest country in the 3rd world and we are situated in a very rural village area some 80 kilometers from Mwanza and approx 12 kilometers from the nearest market town (which has the nearest telephone). In our village of Yitwimila there live an estimated 10,000 people. As we are the only owners of a vehicle in the village the local government have nominated us to help to transport seriously sick people to the local hospital at Magu (12 kilometers away).  We do this free of charge as there is no other way of getting the people to hospital other than by bus (which is not suitable if you are seriously ill).  As well as being a Children's home we run a Clinic and this again brings people to us who need emergency transport to hospital.  I would estimate that this happens once a week on average and this can happen at any tiem of day or night.  As well as being an ambulance for the village we use our vehicle for trips to Magu for our supplies (purchases of food, building materials) and this visit is done approx 3-4 times per week. Since there is no refrigeration (no power) then fresh food has to be purchased regularly and cannot be stored. Every week or so we use the vehicle to visit Mwanza (a major city 80 kilometers away) to purchase items that cannot be bought locally. Also all the government administration is centered there.
We also use the vehicle to transport the children to Magu every Saturday moring for 2 hours computer tuition.
We also travel into the local villagers when we have requests for us to admit children whose parents have died or left homeless. The last four boys we admitted were typical of the work we have to do before admittance. We first got a letter passed to us by the local government social welfare office to admit three boys who were in desperate need. We travelled many miles over rough dirt tracks roads to a remote village and found the 3 boys who turned out to be 4 boys living in abject poverty being looked after by their very sick father. Their mother had died some years earlier. As the boys were being looked after to some extent (however badly) and we were in the middle of a building project (undertaken by Keith Pittson) with 21 volunteer workers staying at Bethany we said we would return some time in the future to pick them up. Unfortunately the father died a few days after we left and so we returned to pick the boys up who we found were coping alone.
We also make numerous follow up trips to keep the children in touch with any know relative so that hopefully they may reintegrated if possible although it must be admitted we have so far found it impossible to find any family relative to look after any of our children. We travel by public transport wherever possible but often the children come from remote villagers many miles off the main road bus routes.

As we are the only transport in our village wherever we go we have a Land rover full of people cadging lifts to visit relatives in hospital or for various other valid reasons. We make no charge for this as the people are so poor.

It is quite difficult to estimate how many people over a three month would benefit from the provision of another vehicle but I imagine it would run into the hundreds.

Question 8b.

Why do you feel the need to purchase a vehicle, rather than any of the options listed above, and how do the costs compare.

Answer: We use public transport (buses) whenever possible although we are aware that the standard of driving by the bus drivers is very poor and more often the vehicles are in a dangerous condition and not fit for the road (they would not be allowed to operate in the UK and the drivers would be prosecuted for the way they drive - dangerous driving).

Our present Land rover is serviced regularly and everything on it works and our Tanzanian drivers have been taught to drive by visiting volunteers from the UK as well as attending a 2 week full time driving school in Mwanza. Our vehicle has been adpated to provide seating in the rear of the vehicle for upto 12 children but it must be admitted we often travel with more in through necessity.

Costing compared to public transport. The local bus to Magu (one way) costs approx 600Tsh (no deduction for children). The total cost for 12 children and 2 adults is therefore 14x600 = 8,400Tsh.

The cost of diesel per litre is approx 670Tsh. The distance is 12 kilometers and the Landrover does approx 4.5 kilometers to a litre of fuel. The cost of transport compared is therefore

Bus: 8,400Tsh

Land rover 2,010Tsh.

( there is no provision in this calculation for other running costs etc)

It would not be possible to lease a vehicle inTanzania (as far as we are aware)

No other organisaton is working in our area so it would be impossible to share.

Conclusion:

We very much hope that our application meets with your approval. It may help with your decision to visit our website which gives much more information than contained here including a monthly history of the project over the last 4 years. www.bethanyonline.org

Kind Regards,