ON SATURDAY 9TH OCTOBER 2004
Freemasons Honoured by President Mkapa
Freemasons
to donate tricycles, mattresses, mosquito nets etc.
Last evening
Freemasons in Tanzania celebrated in Dar es Salaam 100 years of Freemasonry in
East Africa at a gala banquet in a city hotel at which the Guests of Honour is
expected to be President Mkapa and the First Lady. On that occasion Freemasons
will donate 25 tricycles, mattresses, mosquito nets to orphanages and to a blind
school.
Freemasons
are helping many welfare causes in different parts of the country. Among them
are the Kindwitwi Leprosy Centre in Utete; Mother Theresa Home for the
Children, School for the Blind in Pongwe in Tanga Region; Orphanage and Leprosy
Projects in Arusha; Montessori School in Mwanza; Mnazi Mmoja Hospital in
Zanzibar; Missionaries of Charity and Buguruni School for the Deaf are all
beneficiaries of our organization.
Freemasons
have built a class room at Kinondoni Primary School, treated over 100 visually
impaired patients in Dar es Salaam and Zanzibar and provided artificial limbs
to a large number of patients and in 1996 they donated £15,000/- for the
victims of MV Bukoba disaster.
They are
presently paying for the education expenses of the children of the victims of
American Embassy bombing and have promised to do so untl they complete their
high school education. It is the only organization supporting these victims.
English
Freemasonry, which has been in existence for nearly 300 years and which over
the period had amongst its membership Kings, Princes, Prime Ministers,
religious and business leaders, scientists, movie actors, musicians and
writers, came to East Africa in 1904 with the first meeting facility based in
Zanzibar.
It was
introduced in Tanzania in 1904 and over the years the visitors included
President Theodore Roosevelt, His Royal Highness, The Duke of Windsor; His
Royal Highness, the Duke of York who later became King George VI; His Royal
Highness, The Duke of Connaught and Stratheam; the Rt Hon Lord Cornwallis; the
Rt Hon Lord Swansea and the Rt Ho, The Earl of Eglington and Winton who were
all Freemasons.
Their
membership list runs like the world Who’s Who. His Royal Highness, Prince
Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, 14 American Presidents, amongst whom were
Presidents George Washington, both the Roosevelts; Truman, Gerald Ford, George
Bush, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton.
Ten
Australian Prime Ministers, 35 US Supreme Court Justices members, Generals
Colin Powell and MacArthur. Other Freemansons include world leaders like Cecil
Rhodes, Olof Palme, Ted Kennedy, Francois Mitterand, Napoleon Bonaparte,
Winston Churchill, Willy Brandt, Robert McNamara, Edger Hoover and Tony Blair.
Others were
religious leaders like Swami Vivekananda, former Archbishop of Canterbury Most
Reverend Geoffrey Fisher, and Jesse Jackson, business leaders such as Fords,
Rothschilds and the Rockefellers and Richard Wagner, Mozart, Shakespeare,
Rudyard Kipling and Alexander Fleming. Neil Armstrong, the first man to land on
the Moon was a freemason.
The present
Head of English Freemasonry is His Royal Highness, The Duke of Kent a cousin of
Queen Elizabeth II and about 3,000 Freemasons in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and
the Seychelles are headed by Sir Jayantilal Chande, a Tanzanian, who has been
the leader of Freemasonry in East Africa for the past 18 years. The
headquarters of this body established with the approval of the Registrar of
Societies is located on Nyerere Road, Nairobi.
All
Freemasons, drawn from different faiths are encouraged to believe in God as the
Supreme Creator and they are exhorted to be law-abiding and faithful citizens.
They should continuously work towards development of their spiritual and moral
values and ethical standard.
Freemasonry
the oldest fraternal organization, with the possible exception of Boys
Scouts
Movement, is the largest in the world. Globally, about half a million
Freemasons annually contribute about US$400 million to worthy causes.
