Surrounding the Capuchin Retreat Center in Dar es Salaam is a neighborhood that brings me to tears. The poverty is overwhelming! This urban Tanzanian neighborhood has one of the highest infant mortality rates in all of Africa. Children who survive infancy have a long, hard road ahead of them. You can see it in the eyes of the parents. They know how hard it will be for their children because they have lived it their entire lives too.

Our Capuchin missionaries live with the people of Mbagala - this neighborhood of grinding poverty. Brother Raymond and Father Paul are desperate to help. The first thing they are determined to do is provide basic health care, especially for pregnant women and infants.

There is an abandoned building in the middle of this crowded, poor neighborhood. It has been given to the friars for whatever purpose they choose. The ground floor will make a great walk-in clinic. Here, pregnant women will be monitored and assisted with proper nutrition and medical attention. Infants will receive vaccines and life-saving formulas. I don't recall the name, but there is a parasite that is rampant in crowded urban centers of Africa and Asia that ravages infants and children. All that is needed is proper medical attention. It does not need to be deadly. 

Father Paul and Brother Ray cannot start the rehab work on the building until we are able to send some start-up funding. We need $150,000 to get the first floor in order. Father Paul and Brother Raymond are recruiting volunteer doctors and nurses, but they need our help to create a functioning facility with running water and electricity, secure storage for medicines and equipment, and proper accommodations for those who need medical care.