AUGUST 2006
Welcome to the School
of St Jude
In 2002 a young lady, Gemma Rice
(now Sisia), from a sheep farm in Australia, opened a
small school in Northern Tanzania with the help of her
family, friends and local Rotary Club. What started
with only a handful of children is now a thriving school
of almost 700. This school has the potential to really
influence the quality of Tanzania's future leaders.
All the children who attend The School of St Jude come
from very poor families. At the school we provide
everything they need for school from classrooms to books
to uniforms and nourishing food. What makes this school
even more special is the fact that this success comes
about due to the group effort of thousands of ordinary
people from all over the world coming together to do
something quite extraordinary. Individuals,
families and service clubs are joining forces by
supporting the school's various sponsorship programs. Every day staff and students work hard to fulfil
the school’s philosophy of “Fighting Poverty
through Education" helping our students break the
cycle of poverty that has gripped their families for
generations. If this is what such a team effort can
achieve in four short years, then imagine what could be
achieved in ten years!
If you would like to receive our monthly
newsletter, please email us at the address below with the
words "Subscribe to Newsletter" in the subject
line. Or you are welcome to email us at anytime
about anything. Our email address is schoolofstjude@habari.co.tz
In January 2007, 12 women will become the first
group of women to summit three of Africa's highest peaks
in three weeks, to raise awareness and money for the
three peak issues concerning Africa today; Environment,
HIV/AIDS and Education. St Judes is proud to be
associated with this event and will be one of the
fortunate recipients of some of the money raised. If you
would like to find out more about this fantastic
fundraising event, go to www.3peaks3weeks.org
| The school supports the local community alot as even the making of more school desks and chairs is a full time job for several local carpenters. |
| All the classrooms are built out of mud bricks. They are brought in by truck and every brick is counted (as we don't pay for bricks that broke during the transport!!) |
| With the ever-increasing student population, wooden formwork for new classrooms is a common sight. |
| With the building of double story classroom blocks we are endlessly buying tonnes and tonnes of cement and steel. |
 Mrs
Kennedy helped to set up our school library from
nothing. All we had to give her was boxes and
boxes of mixed up donated books. However she took
them with a smile and eventually logged over
10,000 books into the computer system. Now we
have a fantastic library and you just
"zap" the book like you are in a
supermarket! Many thanks to you Mrs Kennedy! |
Thanks to various people around
the world, we have been able to install an internet lab
at the school so that our children can learn to cope with
the technological world that we live in.