Mount Meru Foundation

The Mount Meru Foundation is commited to improving mother and child care in Afrika.

Summary annuel report 2025

The year 2025 was a year in which we had the opportunity to make plans for the future.

Supporting ultrasound education in Tanzania remains our main focus. In 2025, three students graduated from the one-year ultrasound training program in Dodoma. Two of these graduates went to Zanzibar for additional training, where they received hands-on instruction from Regina Namumba. We are very grateful for Regina Namumba’s continued support over the years.

In 2025, two new students also started the ultrasound training program in Dodoma. We hope they will successfully complete the program and will also have the opportunity to receive additional hands-on training with Regina Namumba afterward.

During the Global Health Event in November 2025, we were able to establish valuable contacts with healthcare professionals working in Tanzania. One of the contacts we made has many years of experience as a tropical doctor in Tanzania and is now a board member of Mnero Hospital, a hospital with which we have had good relations since 2025. Together with the hospital’s management and the current tropical doctor, we aim to explore opportunities to enable more students from this region to follow the ultrasound training program. We also plan to investigate the possibility of establishing a skills lab in this region in collaboration with this hospital.

In 2025, contact was also established with Turiani Hospital in central Tanzania. We hope to expand this collaboration in the near future.

Naturally, we continue our other ongoing projects and strengthen them wherever possible.

The Mamabus project in Moshi is running well. Veronika Tarimo has now been working on the Mamabus for six years and performs many ultrasound examinations using a handheld ultrasound device. As she is currently undertaking a one-year training program to become a registered nurse, she mainly held ultrasound clinics during weekends. Veronika Tarimo is currently an enrolled nurse, which can be compared to progressing from vocational (MBO) to higher professional (HBO) nursing level.

Following the example of the project in Lower Moshi, and in collaboration with the Driving Nurses Foundation (SDN), a second Mamabus project was initiated in 2019 in the Karatu region. After delays in 2020 and 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, significant progress was made in 2022. By 2023, the bus was ready, but staff were still lacking. Dr. Heriel from Karatu Lutheran Hospital arranged for Noela Emanuel Sikay to start the one-year ultrasound training at the Benjamin Mkapa Institute in Dodoma in September 2024. SMM funded this training. Noela Sikay completed the program in 2025 and subsequently received two weeks of additional hands-on training with Regina Namumba in Zanzibar.

In 2025, Dr. Simpa also performed many ultrasound examinations during outreach activities in Karatu using the Lumify device provided on loan by SMM.

Johanna Omar, a German midwife in Zanzibar, also performed many ultrasound examinations in 2025 using the Lumify device, which she transports between clinics. Fully booked ultrasound clinics demonstrated the strong need for this type of care.

In 2023, a field study was conducted in Himo to assess the possibilities for mobile antenatal care with ultrasound in rural areas. Due to the retirement of Dr. Maeda that same year, priorities have temporarily shifted toward maintaining and strengthening ultrasound capacity at the Himo health center itself. Jackline Shirima would benefit greatly from additional support in Himo, and this year Esther Mushi started her training in Dodoma.

In 2025, we were able to add a fourth highly skilled and enthusiastic sonographer to our foundation: Annelies Loonen will join Dagmar de Bruijn, Marga Rietveld, and Saskia Brom in supervising our students.

To ensure the future of the Mount Meru Foundation, the board has been seeking new members. Heidi van Keken and Trudy Elskamp initially showed interest but, due to personal circumstances, decided after several months not to join the foundation. Rejuvenation of the board therefore remains an important point of attention.

Summary annual report 2025

Project Lower Moshi- Northern Tanzania

The Driving Nurses Foundation (SDN) and SMM continue to collaborate on the Mamabus in the Lower Moshi region, also referred to as Mamabus 2.0. TPC Hospital in Moshi, with which strong relations have been established, helps provide a qualified nurse/midwife for the Mamabus. Part of the prenatal care is funded by the Tanzanian government and is universally available to all pregnant women in Tanzania.

As mentioned earlier, we are still looking for a second sonographer to train in order to ensure the continuity of the Mamabus in the future. Veronica Tarimo began further training in 2024, which means she now only holds ultrasound clinics during weekends. During this time, she is also able to teach the basic principles of ultrasound to her replacement on the Mamabus.

Project “Adopteer an Ultrasound Specialist”

In 2019, we started the “Adopt a Sonographer” project.
In 2025, the foundation is sponsoring two candidates who began the one-year ultrasound training program in Dodoma in September. Two of the three graduated students received hands-on training with Regina Namumba.

Project: “Further training of already graduated sonographers”

Regina Namumba, well known to the foundation, is a highly experienced and well-trained sonographer with whom the foundation previously collaborated successfully at Mount Meru Hospital in Arusha. In 2025, she once again made herself available to act as a senior hands-on trainer for our sonographers. Regina Namumba now lives and works in Zanzibar. The students she supervises there receive funding from the foundation for their travel, accommodation, and training costs.

Project Himo: “The Mobile Ultrasound Specialist”
In 2023, a field study was conducted in collaboration with SDN to explore the possibilities for setting up mobile services in the rural areas around Himo.

Following the retirement of Dr. Maeda, a gap has emerged in ultrasound expertise. SMM therefore aims to focus first on training new personnel in ultrasound and further developing the skills of Jackline Shirima before continuing plans for mobile services in Himo.

In 2025, Esther Mushi started the ultrasound training program. We hope she will become a valuable addition in Himo.

Project Karatu: “The Mobile Ultrasound Specialist”

In Karatu, as in Himo, we are working not only on training but also on establishing mobile services. This project is also being developed in collaboration with SDN. Initial steps for this project were already taken in 2019. After progress was delayed in 2020 and 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, significant progress was made in 2022. The bus was officially launched in November 2023.

In 2024, a nurse from Karatu Lutheran Hospital was able to start the ultrasound training program in Dodoma, funded by the foundation. Noela Sikay has now successfully completed the training.

Project Zanzibar: “The Mobile Ultrasound Specialist”

Margriet van der Weel-Roem and Anna Lied Poelstra-Sanders provided hands-on training and material support in 2017 and 2018 to the German midwife Johanna Omar in Zanzibar. Since then, Johanna Omar has developed into a skilled sonographer and now runs fully booked clinics using the ultrasound device donated by SMM. We witnessed this ourselves in September 2023.

Regina Namumba, who was present in Zanzibar at our request, provided training to both Johanna Omar and novice sonographers. In 2025, Johanna Omar again performed many ultrasound examinations using the Lumify device provided on loan by SMM. Since November 2024, Johanna Omar has continued her professional development directly with Regina Namumba, who has since been living on the island, without involvement from the foundation.

Project Usambara Mountans

During our stay in 2023, we visited the Usambara Mountains, a potential new project area for SMM—also known as the “garden of Tanzania.” Over the course of two days, we traveled through the mountains and visited both public and private health centers, gaining an overview of local healthcare.

Our focus was on maternal and child healthcare: how it is organized and the role of obstetric ultrasound within it. The situation varied—some facilities had very outdated equipment, while others had relatively modern ultrasound devices. About ten years ago, several people in this region were trained in ultrasound, and they are still performing most of the scans today. They are doing what they can, but it was clear that there is a structural lack of ultrasound expertise, insufficient capacity to meet the demand for scans, and unfortunately no investment has been made in training a new generation of sonographers.

There is already a general shortage of sonographers in Tanzania, but in this remote region the shortage is even more pronounced. It is very difficult to attract professionals to work here.

In both 2024 and 2025, we were not able to further develop this project.

Sponsoring

In 2019, SMM also launched a bottle deposit donation campaign at major supermarkets across the country. This campaign again raised over €1,300 in 2025. The campaign will continue in 2026, although on a smaller scale, as many supermarkets now collaborate with local initiatives. In addition, SMM once again received other donations in 2025.