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Invaluable message in CRB`s assistance
2007-08-17 08:52:42
By Editor
In a week that has seen an avalanche of dramatic political developments, particularly from the National Assembly in Dodoma, it might appear excusable if most other events in the country were relegated into secondary consideration.
However, a goodwill gesture by the Contractors Registration Board that might be wrongly considered inconsequential has refused to be swept under the carpet.
We are told the board has donated 15m/- to Arusha’s six-year-old Kaloleni Primary School with specific instructions that the money be spent on the construction of classrooms for students with mental disabilities.
It has simultaneously donated another 11m/- to help in the construction of classrooms at Arusha Secondary School.
The role of education in the development of individual nations and, by extension, humankind generally definitely cannot be overemphasized.
And it is because of this fact that we feel obliged to congratulate all those who inspired CRB into having the two schools in mind.
We find it noteworthy that we are doing that only days after the Arusha regional authorities proposed to the board a similar vote of thanks and then went on to call upon other institutions to extend similar assistance.
An often-quoted Kiswahili proverb suggests that it is common for people guaranteed a bigger supply of food than they have appetites for to forget that in their very midst exist expansive pockets of poor people the extent of whose appetites by far outstrips the volume of the food at their disposal.
More simply phrased, the moral is that the wealthy seldom find reason to worry about the poor.
That the board has moved to prove the proverb wrong – and done all so meekly through concrete action – is further proof that Tanzania has not run short of well-placed people who care enough about the plight of their disadvantaged fellow citizens to chip is with much-needed help.
Likewise, the appeal by Arusha Regional Commissioner Samuel Ndomba to institutions like CRB to consolidate their links with their neighbourhoods and the larger public by making their corporate social responsibility more solid and therefore more vivid is both timely and invaluable.
Despite the various initiatives taken by the government, religious institutions, civil society organisations and even individuals in a spirited attempt to help make life more meaningful for the disadvantaged segments of society, much remains to be done to help those physically, mentally and otherwise impaired feel that their compatriots and the outside world really care about them.
Both the RC and Kaloleni school instructor Sabina Lufulenge said as much, although not that loudly or bluntly, when receiving the CRB donation.
Disability, be it mental, physical or in any other form, knows no socio-economic class, gender, race or age.
It can strike with crippling impact anyone, anywhere, any time.
It is in tragic times like these that one tells friends in need from fair-weather ones.
It matters a lot – and, with its gesture, CRB is well worth emulating.
We only hope the new Kaloleni classrooms will be friendly enough to the disadvantaged students targeted.
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