The hallmark of this fund is that it invests in people. It invests in the training of people who are working in the hospital. Such people have been living & working in Mvumi, and want to improve their skills & expertise. They are more likely to stay in Mvumi after their training and so often proves a more successful way of improving patient care than trying to recruit new staff to the hospital.

The fund was set up 10 years ago by Edward Atkinson of Dronfield in memory of his son. Since being set up the fund has supported the training & upgrading of nurses, tutors, clinical officers, public health doctors, assistant medical officers, pharmacy staff, anaesthetists and more.

Mvumi has sent some recent requests e.g. for training a laboratory school tutor and for computer training for a hospital technician. Both of these have been approved by the hospital Overseas Link Committee, even though they are more expensive (in Tanzanian terms) than courses have been in past years. Simon Walton chair of the Overseas Link Committee explains "It has been noted that the cost of upgrading our staff has taken a huge jump. This is because our staff are going to private, usually church run, institutions, rather than government schools. There is increasing competition for [the government] schools. Since the [government] health sector has more funding non-government staff are finding it increasingly difficult to obtain places in government schools. Our staff are sitting the exams but not being awarded places."

1. Stafford Sanya. Stafford works in the laboratory and would like to attend a 3 year course at the government teaching hospital in Dar es Salaam to gain a diploma in Medical Laboratory Technology. Mvumi sees this training as strategic as the Laboratory Assistant Training School in Mvumi would like to upgrade in the future to offer the Diploma course and the school will need more tutors. Cost £1,500 for 3 years (includes course fees, books, travel, accommodation).

2. Suzana Malang’u. After working as a clinical officer at Mvumi for nearly six years. She now has gained a place at a course to upgrade to an Assistant Medical Officer, that is like moving from being paramedic to a doctor. The two year course is run at a church based hospital at Ifakara, near Morogoro. Cost £2,200 for 2 years (again inclusive including stethoscope, blood pressure machine, patella hammer).

3. Kennedy Ndulumani. Kennedy is one of the tutors at the Hospital Technicians Training School. He also helps out in the hospital. Over recent years the school has seen a declining student role and it has been looking at ways to redefine itself. As part of that Kennedy want to do a 3 month computer maintenance and repair course. The request for his training comes with the following comment from Simon Walton "We have new computers in every area of the hospital and are very much part of everyday life in the schools and hospital. However they need continual maintenance just to keep the things running. This is before we get to net working in a schools secretarial pool or an administration block. I spend many hours just keeping the [drug] database and the printer going in pharmacy. Therefore there is a definite need to build the capacity of the hospital staff in this area. Also we are being promised the internet by the Diocese of Atlanta. The feasibility of this is being worked out, but at some point it is likely to arrive. Maintaining a computer network or even school training computers will almost be a full time job." Cost £400 (inclusive accommodation, travel, course fees).

In the past the fund has not always held enough money to pay for training and so the committee has had to dip into general funds. Currently we have £1,200 in the fund to pay for the above requests. If you would like to invest in people in Mvumi and support this work, then please contact the secretary