Letter from Mwanza - NO 7

This week has passed very quickly (7/3) and now we find ourselves back at the Isimailo swimming pool. My Olympic swimmer is nowhere to be seen. I think he had enough advice from me! I have found a new-found energy, and after a gap of some 30 years, have landed on a squash court again since gracing the courts in Adel, Leeds. Well perhaps is going a bit too far, but I have managed 3 games, and tomorrow will have a full blown match against Joey. I must learn not to be tempted into going for those shots just out of reach at my present state of fitness, or is the word ‘unfitness’.

I have got to a crucial point with Samaritans and have just completed a report on a possible way forward for them. Like all things it takes money to get things done, and they just don’t have any. In fact I’m not sure this week whether the orphan children got full meals. My suggestion to increase funds comes in 3 areas. Firstly to improve and develop the existing fee-paying pupils needing extra tuition – I’ll talk about this later. Secondly try and but a tent / marquee with chairs and tables to rent out. Done properly the pay back should be some 4 months before it would start contributing. Not bad; but needs some £500 to get off the ground. The third part is to set up a computer tution centre, utilising some of the computers that are sitting snugly in their original boxes having been donated last year. Seemingly if done properly students would pay some £2 per house for tuition – can’t see anyone paying me that much however. We think could be set up for £200 - £300 and if a good teacher could be found, it would really help funding.

So the challenge is on. I say they have no money, but with some of the grant money from last year they spent some £1,500 of it on buying a piece of land out of town for a future orphanage. If this were sold it would finance the plans, but nothing is as simple as that – is it?

Back to education – today, we went to visit a secondary school where some students were being funded by DEFESCO. This is a school we visited a couple of weeks ago. There Leban, a truly impressive man, helps orphans through education and has aspirations to set up his own private secondary school helping both orphans and getting in fee payers.

Primary education in Tanzania is government funded. It goes from the age of about 6 to about 13. This teaching is done in Swahili. At Grade 7 the primary children sit exams, which, if they pass, gets them into secondary school. Secondary schooling is not funded by the government, and although the basic fee for attending is only some £10 pa, when other charges are added (for uniform, stationary and renting the table space!!) the total cost is some £75. The school we visited today is new, and so far only has 2 years of students there, some 360 in total, and they will continue to build numbers until they have classes to form 4 (sort of GCE level) and hope to get to form 6 (A level). Students take 11 subjects, and all, except Kiswahili, are taught in English. This seems crazy as many intelligent children who haven’t grasped English by the age of 13 (because they haven’t been taught it well) are really at a disadvantage in secondary school. The deputy head master thought that only about 5% of children attend secondary school, and the drop out rate is high. Finding £75 per year for each child is a huge commitment for most people. Also, no lunch is given at this school, which means that most of the kids don’t eat anything during the day, possibly after a long walk to and from school. This obviously makes learning even more difficult.

One of the educational fee paying activities MSA has done and wants to more of, is to provide a ‘crash programme’ in English for those who have just taken their final primary exams and are waiting for the results (this takes 4 months!) This course would cost £8 for 3 months and it would enable them to get their English up to the standard required. Just to make the situation even more difficult the teachers are poorly paid (there are complaints at the moment that they are owed back pay) and are of a low standard. Also, there is often not full funding for the school buildings, and local people and parents have to contribute to enable the building of the schools to be competed.

My initial thoughts are how much better it would be if overseas aid could focus on health and education giving support to the country. It would improve its teachers/medical training and perhaps contribute to the best teachers and doctors staying in their country. This would touch far more people and leave a more sustainable effect than one off project donations. As we are finding, nothing is that easy, I sense that because there are many things stacked against sustainable development that it is often better to leave alone, and hope things just gradually get better. I hope the expression “its Africa you know!” is not the reason why more things can’t be done, or have to take a long time.

Kwa Heri for now
Donald