Kim is Heading to America!

This fall, Kim Saville, our Director of International Relations, returns to the States to share remarkable stories of our students and the school with as many supporters as possible.

Having been a Director at the school, Kim has worked alongside Founder, Gemma Sisia, since the early days and has great stories of our school’s growth and development. She would love to share them with as many people as possible. As an experienced and passionate speaker, Kim would make a wonderful addition to your Rotary Club meeting, workplace gathering, school function or special event.

Do you know of an American event in October or November that could benefit from an inspiring guest speaker? Would you like to organize an event during which Kim can share one of the good news stories from Africa this year?

Email us as soon as possible to ensure you are part of her coast-to-coast itinerary!

A year after heading to South Africa on an African Leadership Academy scholarship, former St Jude’s student Liston was back to share his education through a weekend leadership course at Smith campus.

The two-day, ALA-initiated camp is designed to help ambitious students problem-solve via a grassroots structure. Called “BUILD in a Box”, the course is a mobile entrepreneurial development kit that takes its name from the motto ‘Believe, Understand, Invest, Listen and Deliver’.

“I believe St Jude’s is the perfect place for me to come and teach (the course),” Liston explained.

“I studied here for a long time and I really know what they need, and what they need is that familiar relationship. By teaching them BUILD in a Box, I’m sure, once they finish at St Jude’s they will be able to run their own businesses and solve the problems in their community, using this knowledge. I think it would really help them personally, and their communities.”

This was the first BUILD course Liston has delivered, and he is ecstatic with how well it was received by the 32 St Jude’s students involved.

“BUILD is about looking at the root cause of problems, so let’s say the group you are with are looking at the root cause of poverty. The short-term impact is to help individuals, but the long-term impact is to help all of Africa,” he said.

Liston also enjoyed the opportunity BUILD provided to return to St Jude’s as an alumnus.

“I’m really happy to be here again and meet my classmates. I just feel happy. I love St Jude’s, and I think they have the same aim as ALA. Their goals are the same and, for me personally, I align with those goals. They are something that will transform the lives of many people – I’m one of those people who have been transformed by St Jude’s, and now I’m being transformed by ALA.”

Liston is half-way through his ALA scholarship, so his BUILD presentation was supported by recent ALA graduates Bernadette and Peace.

“The BUILD course is usually a term-long course but here we compress it into two days, so it’s much harder. We went through it at ALA and got the right understanding of it so that’s why we can teach it,” Peace, who hails from Rwanda, said.

“Because we are targeting 15 to 22-year-olds who are in the same age bracket, it’s easier for us to communicate from our understanding of it. It’s more of a fun, productive conversation rather than a lecture,” Tanzanian-born Bernadette said.

The young women said their main aim was to change the mindset of the students involved, and that meant each group had to find a solution through the root cause of a complex problem. Peace said students often chose too-broad topics such as education, and were asked to “think about what they can be more specific about within education”.

“We try to focus on very little problems, as in what really bothers you, as you walk from home to school or as you experience your normal, daily life with your peers,” Bernadette explained. “After you have solved a little problem, and you see ‘Oh, I successfully did that,’ it makes you feel like you can do something bigger and bigger, and that becomes a whole ‘change the society’ type of thing.”

Bernadette said their ultimate aim, at the end of each two-day program, is to produce “actual, practical solutions that people can feel they might be able to do for something they really, deeply care about”.

Bernadette and Peace said they had thoroughly enjoyed helping facilitate the St Jude’s students, and that Liston was shaping up to be a promising BUILD in a Box leader.

Meanwhile, Liston is enthusiastically looking forward to his second year at ALA.

“I’m really enjoying ALA after studying there for one year. At first it was really challenging, you know, you are changing everything, changing curriculum, no speaking Swahili. From my second term, I can say I started to enjoy it more than I thought, and I’ve had many chances to explore a lot of opportunities,” he said.

“I will graduate next year, in June, with a high school diploma. After that, I will go to college. I would like to study electrical engineering. Since when I was here (St Jude’s), since I was young, I’ve loved electrical engineering. I always taught other students and showed them, and also learnt from them. I love sharing.”

Click here to sponsor a future leader like Liston.

In what is becoming a popular way of saying ‘thanks’ to St Jude’s, a group of 23 student parents recently volunteered their time to help keep the Moshono campus beautiful.

Christopher, whose daughter Neema is currently in Form 6 at Smith campus, was one of those parents who helped out with school maintenance. He said it was their way of saying thanks for giving their children an education.

“We came here to help other staff to work, it’s our duty,” Christopher said.

“We are happy to work with other staff, because they help us.”

It was Christopher’s first time volunteering at the school, and he kept busy working in the gardens alongside other parent volunteers. Meanwhile, the senior primary dining hall got a thorough clean thanks to a group of mothers who had also come to help for the day.

The parent volunteers have inspired our students to get involved in caring for the school campuses too.

St Jude’s students have begun gardening their own plots of school land as part of a Self-Reliance Program, which will be launched next year.

Upper primary school headmaster Peter Manjalla said Standard 5, 6, and 7 students were so enthusiastic about the upcoming program they were getting an early start.

The program will have long and short-term practical benefits for the school and the students.

“We want to make sure the students take pride in their school and develop the skills and abilities to keep it tidy,” Peter said.

“The idea is about teaching them how they can work on any kind of project to be a source of income, and to make it self-sustainable.”

Other areas likely to be part of the program include “domestic science” (how to cook hygienically and clean up properly), and maintenance of classrooms, boarding rooms and outside school areas.

With such ideal role models in many of their parents, we are thrilled the students have adopted the program with such enthusiasm.

See how the spirit of giving back is making an impact on more of our students.