Our Story
Connie - I am a well educated, extremely motivated individual who has walked through life with a purpose & goals, that being said my whole life changed after visiting Tanzania in June of 2019 for a friend's wedding. I'm well traveled & usually my next adventure is somewhere I haven't yet been, but for some reason I was drawn to return to Tanzania & 6 months later I returned there again
to figure out what that reason was. The plan was to stay for 3 months & return in March 2020...then Covid-19 hit. I could have returned in March but 2 things stopped me, the first was getting on a plane knowing nothing about this virus except that it was deadly & the second was that I hadn't really figured out why I was there yet, so I took a leap of faith & decided to extend my ticket for 45 days. By that time everything shut down, borders closed & I was truly stuck here. I've had some ups & downs, it isn't easy to be a foreigner alone in a third world country where you don't speak the language or know the customs. I ended up being in Tanzania for over 10 months, God closes some doors and God opens other doors and as time went on I met Makata and he shared my heart, my faith & together we created a vision to help people, it didn't happen overnight & a lot of thought was put into creating Conka Africa Foundation. I visited other organizations to learn from them, Makata helped me understand culture & customs, and I prayed a lot. Makata – I am a native Tanzanian & grew up here in Tanzania. Unfortunately, I lost my mother at a very young age, then my father moved me to another city and after 1 year my father left the country, I stayed in Tanzania, but I was moved from relative to relative and attended 7 different primary schools. Life was very difficult, and I had to fight for myself to get an education, tutoring younger students and selling newspapers on the street to make money to pay my school fees. Eventually I was able to graduate with an Advanced Diploma in Business Administration. I met Connie in 2020 when I was trying to find employment in business administration and doing work as an Uber driver. Connie would often call me for rides because I could understand and speak English which made it easier for her to navigate life as a foreigner in Dar Es Salaam. We became friends and I realized we both had the heart to help others and even if you have a little, it is better to share it with others. CONKA is a combination of our names together “CON” from Connie and “KA” from Makata. Together labored over who to serve, how to help & where to help, in Africa you can see the needs everywhere & we quickly learned that we could burn out completely if we didn't have focus. Ultimately it was decided that we would focus on kids who were orphans, disabled, come from single parent homes or homes where they are at risk and we would help adults who are elderly, disabled or single parents. We also would refrain from simply giving handouts. Instead, we strive to teach them how to help themselves & others. So what does that look like? Sometimes we serve as mediators, putting our heads together to solve a problem, we volunteer labor rather than money, we teach the older kids how to help the younger ones. We try to come up with sustainable solutions, rather than quick fixes. We emphasize education and provide resources so that the children can succeed, we help people start businesses & so much more. Sometimes though people are just hungry, need clothes, need their roof fixed or toilet built and we do that too. It is hard to ask for help & 95% of the money used has come from our own pockets with the exception of a couple fundraisers we were able to do & a couple faithful monthly contributions which we greatly appreciate. As of Dec. 2022, CONKA AFRICA is now a registered international NGO, we humbly asking for you to partner with us, make a one time donation towards something that you couldn't imagine going without, or make a commitment to a monthly donation to change lives. Currently we help 20 children & 8 adults, but the need is greater. Village schools often rate the lowest in test scores, we want to see that change, we know God has us here for a reason and we also know that we can't do it alone, but together we can make a difference. Our website www.conkaafrica.com is coming soon. If you can't donate, please share & definitely pray for us as we continue this great work. Thank you & God bless you.
~Makata & Connie
