Welcome to Bahati Tanzania!

Bahati is a German & Tanzanian registered non-profit organization founded by Kerstin Cameron who spent one year in prison in Arusha, Tanzania, facing charges for the murder of her husband, Cliff Cameron. Kerstin was acquitted of all charges in May 2001, but her experiences in prison under severe conditions instilled in her a deep rooted wish to help African women in prison.

During her incarceration Kerstin was faced with the plight of her inmates. Women and their children languish sometimes for many years until their cases are brought to trial. Up to twenty women including children had to share communal cells, up to three women sleeping on one thin mattress placed on the floor. The staple diet existed of boiled maize meal and beans. Once a week the women were given an orange.

Although two doctors were on duty, medical attention was practically non-existent as there were no medicines available. During Kerstin’s year in the prison, two women died without being taken to hospital and two babies were born in the cell without a doctor attending the birth.

Women were not supplied with sanitary towels and most often had to use ripped up clothes. Babies had to be swaddled in rags and plastic bags. The situation is especially dismal for the women coming from poor backgrounds – the majority of the inmates. Their families cannot afford to visit them in prison to bring additional food, clothes or basic sanitary supplies - toothpaste, soap etc. Private legal aid is out of the question.

For many women, their situation in prison is especially desperate, as they have no knowledge how their children, left behind, are faring. Children are not allowed to visit in the prison; the women are not allowed to write letters or to receive mail and sometimes children of the woman in prison are rejected by her family and they end up begging on the streets or they are forced into child labour or simply die.

When the women are released from prison, sometimes after many years, their troubles really start. There are no governmental bodies to care for them. They are released into freedom with no means to buy a first meal, find a place to sleep or to get back to their villages. Eventually back home - if not returned to prison first for stealing food - they find their children desolate and face a desperate future with no prospects of finding work, feeding and clothing their children or sending them to school. The stigma existing in the communities makes them and their children into outcasts.

In 2005 Bahati opened the first halfway house in Arusha. Offering women and their children released from prison shelter, food and medical care, it also houses a workshop. We train women to make fashionable jewellery using beadwork and locally available items. The idea is to sell the products on the local market and abroad, thus ensuring self-funding of the project, although donations form an invaluable source. Here women find work in a relaxed and happy environment, they learn about life skills, business management, marketing and we eventually help them to set up their own businesses.

Please browse our site and contact us if you have any questions or are interested in becoming a member of our organization