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Upendo Foundation Aus Inc.

On Wed 10th Dec '25, Anthony Sim, Chairman of Upendo Foundation Australia, presented Transforming Children’s Lives, their sole purpose of providing the financial means to operate their children's home, a safe refuge for orphaned and street kids at the base of Mt Kilimanjaro, Siha, Tanzania.

Aim: They aim to enrich and transform the lives of our children and the lives of those who support them. We strive every day to provide these beautiful children a better future and hope as they grow up they will make a positive contribution to their community and break that cycle of poverty.

Our story: Initially conceived and established 2009 by Melbournian Luke Bennett as an art school for street kids, we’ve expanded his vision to providing a loving nurturing home, quality education and opportunities and pathways to employment. The team on the ground in Tanzania are dedicated to children who sadly all have distressing backgrounds ranging from physical and sexual abuse, abandonment, hardship and some are orphaned from the effects of HIV and AIDS pandemic.

Story of the Children: Anthony shared the story of three young girls they have supported in the past. Stella returned to the cycle of being an unmarried mother living in poverty. Due to malnutrition as a baby she had a developmental brain delay, and after being taken in by Upendo at Age 10 and commencing Prep she could not sustain her studies. At the age of 16 and in Year 4, Stella dropped out of school and by 20 was raising 4 children with no income and living a subsistence lifestyle. There has been ongoing success however, with other students such as Vanessa and Naomi whom we learnt about.

Goals: Upendo Foundation Australia’s recently purchased 9 acres of land in Tanzania to build a permanent home for our orphaned children. Their current project is to raise $20,000 to build a secure fence to protect their farmland from roaming livestock and keep our community safe. They will then install a bore which is being funded by Ballarat Rotary West and then the aim is to build a house to accommodate up to 50 disadvantaged children.

The long-term goal is to develop a plan to make the charity redundant and develop sustainable and ongoing programs that self-fund the centre.
Click HERE for further details on the Upendo Foundation website.