Ambulance for Tanzania

MORRISTOWN  The Imiliwaha Health Center the Njombe region of Tanzania faces a formidable task: serving 16 impoverished villages that are stretched out over 4,000 square miles in a remote, mountainous area half the size of New Jersey. It’s tough for people in the U.S. to imagine that the villagers must walk nearly 50 miles for healthcare — even emergency treatment.

Coming to the rescue of people of Njombe is James Smart, a senior at Delbarton School here, and a team of fellow students, who run Project Imakulata, a non-profit initiative to raise money to purchase an ambulance for the community that will not be able to cut the distance from the villages to the clinic, but will greatly reduce travel time. So far, the new outreach has raised one-third of the estimated $30,000 for a used Toyota Land Cruiser. Smart anticipates to raise the rest of the funds by May and to deliver to the health center by the next month.

“It’s a different experience in Tanzania. We have many options for healthcare but the people there don’t,” said Smart of Immaculate Conception Parish in Annandale, who stayed with Benedictine Monks in 2015 during a mission trip to Njombe, and has since founded Project Imakulata. “This impacts people halfway around the world. We want to make a difference,” he said.

Project Imakulata has been collaborating with the East Africa Ambulance Project, a non-profit organization, founded in 2009 to bring custom-made ambulances to areas of Africa that can utilize them as mobile clinics and emergency evacuation vehicles. Smart has been collaborating with Mike Carr and Brain Theroux, who run the project and teach at Delbarton, run by Benedictines. Three fellow students have been assisting Smart: Liam McSorley of St. Matthew the Apostle Parish, Randolph; Sean Taylor of St. Vincent Martyr Parish, Madison; and Andrew Badenhausen of Immaculate Conception Parish, Montclair. Neither Project Imakulata nor the East Africa Ambulance Project is an official charity of Delbarton. All four students have been soliciting friends, family, parishioners at their respective faith communities and others, Smart said.

Benedictine Sisters operate the Imiliwaha Health Center, which provides basic health care for thousands of men, women and children every year. It admits about 800 women each year to its labor ward and offers comprehensive dental care and confidential HIV counseling and testing. Smart visited the clinic, along with a Benedictine-run school and an orphanage, during a service trip with an outreach, Benedictines East Africa and Delbarton School (BEADS), now 10 years old, he said.

“It’s amazing that the Benedictines there can to so much [with so little]. They deal with so many struggles of daily life,” said Smart, who with other missioners, shadowed the workers of the clinic, school and orphanage to take stock of their needs. “The birthing center has no electricity. The women give birth by candlelight. Many kids have been abandoned or neglected. Children automatically hold your hand. Benedictine Sisters found kids a dumpster,” he said.

In a rural and impoverished Africa, ambulances provide transportation to medical facilities — like in the U.S. — but also can provide primary preventative care, pre- and post-natal care, vaccinations and geriatric care. A while back, the East Africa Ambulance Project bought an ambulance for a health clinic in Kenya, where BEADS also conducted serve trips, said Smart, who noted that he might return to Tanzania this summer.

“On our trip to Tanzania, we learned that we were there to experience it, learn what the people need and carry that with us. We are here to change this,” Smart said.

Taylor traveled to Tanzania in 2016. Missioners purchased a battery-powered microscope, so the clinic, which has no electricity, could make quick diagnoses for diseases, such as for malaria, which can be cured if caught early. The new ambulance also will help patients, who are suffering from these diseases, by transporting them to the clinic more quickly, Taylor said.

“Life is so different there in Tanzania than in Madison. Most of the kids wear the same clothes day after day. They played soccer by kicking around bunched up plastic bags, until we gave them a real soccer ball,” said Taylor, who plans to travel to Guatemala with Houses to Homes. “With Project Imakulata, we want to get the word out and tell people about our experiences and what we are trying to accomplish. We are in a position to impact people’s lives,” he said.

[To donate to or learn about Project Imakulata, go to: www.eastafricaambulance.org.]