Hope and Anna Taft and the legacy of the Tandana Foundation

Hope Taft and Anna Taft receive a fruit basket as a sign of appreciation at the elementary school in Tangali, Ecuador. (Photo courtesy of Anna Taft.)

Going back to the Civil War, the Taft family has had an outsized influence in Ohio and national politics. A president and Supreme Court Chief Justice, U.S. Secretary of War, two U.S. Senators and a governor, all sprang from the family.

These days, the family legacy rests on the shoulders of Anna Taft, 45, the daughter of former Gov. Bob and Hope Taft, who is carving her own path in public service far from the world of politics in the villages of Ecuador in South America and Mali in West Africa.

In 2006, Anna was inspired to form the Tandana Foundation, a non-profit organization supporting people in communities in Ecuador’s Otavalo Canton and Mali’s Bandiagara District including service projects and intercultural volunteer experiences. It is not a missionary or exchange program, nor is its goal solely to “help the poor,” although that is part of what it does.

Tandana supports simple dreams: education, health care, food security, clean water, environmental conservation, and income generation. Tandana volunteers visit the countries as guests, not tourists, often forming intercultural friendships that go beyond sightseeing.

Hope Taft, Anna’s mother, has been a central figure in Tandana since the beginning. Later this year, Hope plans to step down as president of the foundation after helping oversee and do hands-on work in innumerable projects in Ecuador and Mali while also laboring behind the scenes from the Tandana office in the basement of the family home in Spring Valley, Ohio. The foundation has grown in 18 years from a startup to an organization with a $1 million annual budget and a staff of more than a dozen.

“I’m at the stage in my life where Bob and I want to do other things,” said Hope who turns 80 this year. “We’re entering a new phase in our life.”

“My grandmother had a ‘sometime shelf’ with things she wanted to do. It’s time to start that.”

A celebration recognizing Hope Taft’s contributions, “The Legacy of Hope,” will be held Nov. 8 at the Boat House at Confluence Park in Columbus. Information is available at www.tandanafoundation.org/loh.

Anna Taft’s Interest in Different Ways of Living

The daughter of a well-known family of privilege became interested in how other people live their lives at an early age. She was never enthused about politics, although she dutifully attended public events with her parents.

Her outside interests started when Hope, not imagining her eight-year-old daughter would be interested in a weeklong summer camp at a Holmes County farm with goats, chickens and no electricity or indoor plumbing, tossed aside a brochure for the program.

But Hope was wrong.

Anna, only a second grader at the time, found the camp brochure and jumped at the opportunity to see how other people lived in a quite different environment from her own. She thrived on her Amish country experience and returned year after year throughout elementary school.

It was the beginning of a new direction in the life of the great-great granddaughter of William Howard Taft, the 27th U.S. president. She has embraced a life of public service like her father and mother and previous generations of the Taft family, but in a dramatically different way by engaging other people and cultures.

The word Tandana is derived from Kichwa, a language of Ecuador, Colombia and Peru, meaning to “unite” or “gather together.” The foundation has no political or religious affiliations and is financially supported by individual contributions, grants and volunteer participation fees.

Bob Taft, 82, who is famously familiar with the legacy pressure of his family name, said he and Hope never pushed their daughter in a specific career direction. He made his own pilgrimage to a foreign country as a young man when he volunteered with the Peace Corps in Tanzania in East Africa before settling in to run for elective office..

“We really supported her in the interest that she pursued in the experiences, the adventures that she embraced. … We never pushed her when she was young. She had to go for the parades and go to the events …  But we never pushed her to like politics or to be in politics.”

Politics “took me away from always being with Anna,” the former governor said ruefully.

A family trip to Kenya opened the door to Anna’s imagination when she was a junior in high school. While Bob and Hope focused on the sights and animals of a photographic safari experience, Anna was drawn to the people she met and their communities. She filled a diary on the trip with her thoughts and observations.

While Bob Taft was involved in the foundation in many ways, including making financial contributions, Hope was the dynamo who made it work, helping their daughter get the organization up and running, the former governor said.

“As a father, I’m immensely proud of Anna and all she accomplished,” he said. “She is able to operate in Spanish- and French-speaking cultures and developed her own philosophy of community development. She is helping communities express their voice and make decisions about their future.”

Hope’s experience in volunteer, community and non-profit work equipped her daughter with the knowledge to create Tandana.

Hope said she felt a mother’s worries when Anna first went to Ecuador in 1998 after college to live with her host family in Panecillo, a village of 800 people in northern Ecuador in the highlands of the Andes mountains. The village, which is 9,000 feet above sea level and a two-hour bus ride from Quito, the capital, is framed by two volcanoes. The trip was planned to be three months but turned into four.

Anna later became a teacher for The Traveling School, bringing students from the U.S. to Ecuador to help with projects and participate in community life.

Nearly two decades after all this started, Hope is bursting with pride at what her only child has done with her life.

“There’s not many people that have changed as many lives as she has,” she said. “Her head is on straight.”

Tandana’s Record on Two Continents

One way to see what Tandana has done is by looking at the foundation’s Form 9 annual impact reports .

In a single year recently, Tandana helped build a new schools in Dani, created operated a literary program for 300 women and leadership workshops for 100 others, created a program for 75 internally displaced children to attend school, provided education scholarships for 100 rural Ecuadorian students, created five school gardens, began construction on two new grain banks, worked on environmental projects to prevent erosion and retain water, held training sessions on making cookstoves, provided books, supplies, uniforms, transportation expenses for university students and created a scholarship program in Mali for 37 students.

There is more: provided emergency food support, create menstrual kits in a workshop, provided first aid station to two schools, helped new startup gardening businesses, provided materials for a community volleyball court, painted schools, installed bike racks and hand-washing station, supported music and art teachers at an elementary school, donated medical supplies to a hospital, and organized a health and well-being program that helped hundreds of patients.

Tandana’s long record of accomplishments is notable for a volunteer organization.

The View from Tandana Volunteers

Among the many Tandana volunteers, the experience of Laura Fragodt Nichols stands out. She began 20 years ago as a Traveling School companion with Anna Taft in Ecuador, not knowing the role the country would play in her future.

“I still remember the community spirit of the minga (cooperation for the common good) in which we participated to improve the water purification system and the hospitality of Don Vicente in welcoming us to the community of Panecillo,” Laura wrote in a blog. “I am certain that in those moments I had no thought that in 20 years, I would be in the same community with my husband and two children.”

Nichols returned as a volunteer several times. Back at home, she earned a medical degree, married and had two children.

“The best part of the Tandana experience is the forming of relationships with people from another culture,” she continued.

Nichols and her husband Brent and children, Owen, 9, and Everly, 6, faced challenges in their trip to Ecuador, especially language.

“They were sometimes hot, sometimes tired, sometimes bored, but sometimes, they would offer to help as others expressed enjoyment in the work. In particular, there was an old mural with bottle caps that Owen took particular satisfaction in helping remove. The confidence gained by participating in these new tasks for them will lay a foundation for future experiences.”

She overhead her daughter telling a story about a gas truck in the village. “Trucks carrying propane and blaring a Good Humor ice cream truck-like tune drive around all day offering to sell gas. The kids made a game of seeing who could see the gas truck first and who had seen them the most times, enjoying the novelty of this simple cultural difference.”

“From the simple pleasures to challenges, growth and community connections, we had an experience with Tandana that we will remember for many years. We will never forget the hospitality and the bonds formed.”

Susan Napier and her late husband Bill got involved with Tandana in 2009 when she began thinking about retirement and travel, especially to Africa.

“I have been fortunate to travel with Tandana in Mali, West Africa, in 2010, 2011, and 2012,” Susan Napier said. “Bob Taft and my husband, Bill , were among those who participated in the trip in 2012.

In addition to trips to Mali, Napier was involved in three volunteer experiences in Ecuador where she visited mountain villages daily to provide a medical clinic for families “some of whom walked up to two hours to get to the clinic for care.”

“Our family has been blessed by travel and friendships in a number of different countries, but being able to live and work and play beside a group of new friends opens up a clearer recognition of how others live and serve in their lives—we learn from one another!”

Fatouma Kouriba of Dimbily in Mali was hesitant to participate in a Tandana literacy program for women being offered in her community. At first, her husband objected, but relented. She went on to become an instructor in the same program.  . When she was invited to meet with Anna Taft in Mali’s capital, she was hesitant.

“I thought that a white woman would not collaborate with us, especially those of us who live in the villages but my opinion changed the moment we arrived,” Kouriba said. “It was beyond my comprehension. Anna took our hands like her own sisters. She greeted us. We ate together, drank together, walked together like brothers and sisters. It amazed me. It was like a miracle”

A Mother and Daughter Team

Anna Taft emphasizes that when she needed help to start her foundation, she turned to her mother not so much as a parent, but as a hands-on veteran of founding and working with many non-profit organizations.

“She has so much experience and she’s a natural mentor,” Anna said. “She has always been incredibly supportive, ready to help with whatever I needed.”

Hope is “the most fantastic ambassador for Tandana,” Anna said. “She gets everyone else excited. We would not be where we are without her.”

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