ABOUT AMANI (from the Amani website)
“Amani is a community-based organization in northern Tanzania that helps children grow up safely within families—reunited after care in orphanages. Formerly supporting Amani Children’s Home, our team at Amani Initiatives works closely with regional Social Welfare Officers to support reunification and ensure every child stays connected to their cultural roots and home community. Our programs combine education, family strengthening, and livelihood support to break cycles of poverty and institutionalization. We believe in equal access to opportunity, dignity for every family, and a future where children thrive as the heroes of their own stories.

LATEST NEWS

• In November 2025, Wild Wonder and John Muir Laws will partner to hold a mammal drawing class as a fundraiser for Amani. All proceeds will support Amani’s 2026 education and outreach programs.

• In August 2024, Wild Wonder sent Amani a resupply of nature journaling materials including journals, bags, watercolor pencils, water brushes, pencils, sharpener, goniometer, and wrist cuff. The children learned from a day of in-person nature journaling workshops with John Muir Laws and 15 volunteers. The following day, the group shared a day-long guided nature journaling field trip to Ngorongoro Crater. In addition, the children learned from 5+ hours of live online classes with John Muir Laws. Thanks to donations from the community, Wild Wonder supported all of these programs.

• In May 2024, Wild Wonder Foundation hosted Learn to Watercolor with John Muir Laws to raise funds for nature journaling supplies, a nature journaling field trip, and clean water for the underserved children at Amani Children’s Home.

• In early 2024, Wild Wonder Foundation donated $5,000 to Amani Children’s Home for food security, including funds raised by the Learn to Draw Gourds class and the $1,000 challenge grant from John Muir Laws.

• In November 2023, Wild Wonder Foundation hosted a class taught by John Muir Laws, Learn to Draw Gourds, as a fundraiser to support food security at Amani.

• Read this essay from Amani Children’s Home about the Feb 2023 visit.

• Read this essay by Anne Chadwick, a nature journaler from California who was on the Feb. 2023 trip.

OUTREACH OVERVIEW

Tanzania has been significantly affected by food insecurity. Approximately 31% of the Tanzanian population suffers from undernutrition, with more than half experiencing moderate or severe food insecurity (USAID, 2023). Tanzania ranks 90/113 in measures of food accessibility, affordable, quality, and availability (The Economist Group, 2022). Households that are food insecure tend to eat more bushmeat (Friant 2015, Thompson et al 2023, Borgerson 2016). Improved food security helps stabilize household needs and family health, and decreases pressure on wildlife populations. Supporting culturally relevant food security (with access to affordable, healthy, consistent meals) is not only helping feed hungry people, it is a vital step towards protecting wildlife species.

2024 NATURE JOURNALING WITH AMANI
In summer 2024, John Muir Laws will travel to Amani with another group of volunteer nature journalers who will again bring the joy of nature journaling to the children. Learn more and sign up for the trip!

PAST OUTREACH

In 2022, thanks to the support of many generous donors, we raised funds to purchase enough nature journaling supplies to give 50 children and teachers their own nature journaling kit, including a blank sketchbook, a set of watercolor pencils, a water brush, drawing pencils, a goniometer, a pencil sharpener, a wrist cuff (for painting in the field), a pencil case, and their own bag to carry the supplies.

During winter 2022 and early 2023, Jack sent digital materials and met with the children and their teachers via video conference to build connections, create excitement, and set expectations.

In February 2023, John Muir Laws and a group of nature journalers and professional guides spent two days at Amani. The first day, they delivered kits and taught the children and the teachers about nature journaling. The next day, the whole group took a field trip to a local national park to share the joy of nature journaling together. Jack also shared resources and support the orphanage educators to help ensure the nature journaling program continues after the group leaves.

Through this ongoing outreach, we hope to help inspire these children to be caretakers of their natural resources. Also, because selling handmade art is a viable way to earn an income in Tanzania, this outreach can help children to be self sufficient as they grow up.