Stories from our work in Tanzania
Erica’s Story
Erica was left a single mother with 5 children after her husband was killed in a car accident. Erica approached us in 2025 for work. We have been able to give her some building work for the last 18 months. She has been able to send her children to school, treat their illnesses, buy them clothes and start a small chicken rearing business. She lived in a very sad mud house which had no windows and was very cramped.
Over the past 10 months, we have managed to build her a small 3 bedroom house which she absolutely loves. Numerous volunteer teams have worked on this house, including our family team who concreted the floors.
Why not think about joining us in this life changing work?
Enoch’s Story
In rural Tanzania, the vast majority of villagers use firewood on a traditional three stone fire as their primary cooking technology. When Enoch was 11 months old, he fell into a fire and got severely burnt. A Go Mad team came across him as his uncle was taking him to hospital which was 8km away. Enoch was in shock and unconscious when we saw him. We used our first aid skills to treat the burns with cold water which revived him. We took him to the local hospital as quickly as we could.
After a week of treatment, which cost $420, he was well enough to be discharged, and he gradually started to heal. He is now 8 years old and going to primary school. Unfortunately, like all the children in the village, he contracts malaria several times a year. The photo shows him after successful treatment in the local hospital, which even with an overnight stay only cost $30.
We have introduced energy efficient clay stoves which replace the traditional three stone open fires. They are also much more efficient and lose less firewood.
Leprosy Community
Once a week we visit the community where our friends who are living with the after effects of leprosy live. Although they are no longer infected with the disease they have suffered and continue to suffer a number of physical after effects.
These include nerve damage and loss of sensation. This means that very often they injure themselves without knowing that their hands or feet are being burnt or damaged in some way. Our volunteers treat their hands and feet with basic first aid and give them socks to wear to protect their stumps. We often massage their damaged limbs and moisturise areas that are dry.
Muscle weakness and deformity is often a common result of the illness, and our treatment helps release some paralysis in their hands and feet.
As it’s very hard for them to walk, they struggle to get to town for medical treatment therefore we use our land rovers as an ambulance service to ferry them to clinics for treatment.