Ariane Desmarais-Michaud and Kathryn Hansen are Political Studies students from Bishop's University in Canada doing a second installment in an ongoing study project of the situation of orphans and vulnerable children in Njombe under the guidance of the Highlands Hope affiliated Kibena Women's Association and with the support of the KYOFI youth organization. George Sanga of Njombe is also working closely with them doing the research.

Last summer, Bishop's students Lucie Imbeau and Micah Orr investigated home living conditions of a group of orphans who receive support from the KIbena Women's Association (with contributions from a number of Canadian donors including St. George's School in Montreal and the Buck family from Magog).

The Bishop's students' travel is sponsored by TD Meloche-Monnex.

Below is the latest note from Ariane and Kathryn outlining the community support that their work on the situation of orphans has attracted.

Hi Royal!

Just a quick update. We have almost completed our student interviews and we are looking forward to meet with the community. On the weekend we accompanied Betty and Aspen on to a small village for HIV testing. It was very interesting to observe the work that Betty does on a daily basis. Also in the news, we are apparently recieving an award for community service in Njombe tomorrow, for the research that we are conducting. Which makes our work seem all the more worth while, because we have the entire community behind us! Alright so we have 1 1/2 more weeks to finish our research, and we are quite optimistic about finishing everything on time. Hope that everything is going well in Canada!

Kathryn and Ariane