In 2022, The Faraja Fund Foundation began a strategic planning process so that it could help more children with special needs beyond the walls of Faraja Primary School. Many disabled children born in the rural villages of Tanzania never see a doctor, and there is little understanding of how to care for or manage a child’s disability.

That same year,  the Faraja Fund Foundation commissioned a study implemented by Tanzanian Women Research Foundation  that underscored the urgent need and gaps in services for children with special needs, especially in the remote areas of the country.  Pledging to help close this gap, the Foundation moved from serving hundreds of children to many thousands through the work of Faraja Forward.

Faraja Forward is community-based, community-centered  and community-informed. Through our mobile outreach clinic and partnerships with health care providers and other specialists, we serve families that few have ever served, offering diagnosis, psychosocial support, physical and occupational therapy, and training to mothers and village health workers. Our advocacy professionals work at the ward and district levels to help government leaders better respond to and serve CWD, and realize its United Nations Sustainable Development Goals in the area of disabilities: To Leave No One Behind.