Our students have continued to impress academically, with outstanding results across the campuses in recent national exams. 

It’s been another successful year for our Grade 4 students, this year ranking first in the district, second in our region and in the top .04% of the entire nation. 87.6% of the students achieved the top grade in the difficult exams.

In 2016 our Grade 4 students also achieved impressive results, ranking first in the district and third in the region. 

George Stephen, our Primary Headmaster, could barely contain his enthusiasm. 

“Our school managed to maintain the first position in two consecutive years in the district, which is not easy with the competition from the Arusha municipal schools,” he said. “We did it again! This performance has made me feel very successful both as a teacher and the leader of the school.” 

Not to be outdone, our high school students have also achieved some stellar results. 

Our Form 2 students aced their exams, with 96% achieving the top possible mark. This included 133 students topping English, and 121 for biology. 

Acting secondary headmaster Adam Myombe was very proud of the students and teachers who achieved the results.  

“I am very proud of what we have achieved with my team and students. I always feel honoured to be making a difference as part of the St Jude’s family,” he said. “Academic success is not just determined by how bright a student is, it is about the hard work they put in to achieve their goals”. 

These results continue the St Jude’s tradition of impressive academic success. We can’t wait to see what the rest of 2017 holds for our students!

Want to help a St Jude’s student succeed? Sponsor a student today.

When you support St Jude’s, you aren’t just providing free education to the poorest and brightest students in Arusha. You’re supporting almost 300 talented, dedicated staff members committed to fighting poverty in their community. 

In our Staff Spotlight series you get the chance to meet these impressive members of the St Jude’s family.

Lawyer. Fashion designer. Inspirational woman. 

That’s what St Jude’s graduate Miriam envisions when she thinks about what she will be 10 years from now.

“So many girls (in Tanzania) fall into different traps, they are facing so many problems in life and they can’t help themselves,” Miriam said. 

“Here in Africa, so many women miss out on a lot of opportunities because people do not believe in them. I want to be a different woman, I want to show my fellow African women that we can do so many good things.”

One of seven siblings raised by their mother, Miriam received a life-changing opportunity when she earned a St Jude’s scholarship as a Grade 2 student.

“My mum has been through a lot of hardships, and raised all seven of us (children) by herself. She was struggling hard for us to live a good life and had to fight for us to eat, be dressed and go to school,” she said, adding that her education at St Jude’s gave them all hope. 

“My mum is an amazing, strong woman but looking at what she has been through, I didn’t want to live that life. I was the luckiest to come to St Jude’s. What I got here I would never get anywhere else in Tanzania. I have seen what my little brothers have been going through (in government schools), and sometimes they can’t even get books,” she said. “My school time (at St Jude’s) has been like heaven, which is something so many kids don’t get from their school.”

After graduating in May, Miriam chose to give back for her free, high-quality education by volunteering in the St Jude’s business office.

She’s one of the most creative members of our team, and her formidable drive has helped her succeed with various projects here in the past six months – one of which has been producing the jewellery line available during Gemma and fellow graduate Winrose’s 2017 Australian visit.

To Miriam, who also designs and makes clothing, creativity comes naturally. However, she said it’s the hard work and a “can do” attitude that is allowing her to become the successful and inspirational woman she aspires to be. 

Miriam said amazing, inspirational women “trigger her spirit” and she wants to do the same for others.

“I was researching inspirational women and read about women like Oprah Winfrey and Michelle Obama,” she said. “But then I sat down and thought, no, my mum is the best. She made me who I am today, and I can see what she has achieved with my own eyes. There is no one else like her.”

She said her good fortune of having other inspirational female role models in her life, like St Jude’s founder Gemma Sisia, has helped her make decisions in life that will get her closer to the future she dreams of.

“Professionally, I want to be a lawyer and I can still be a designer (on the side),” she said. “Ten years from today, I’ll be a lawyer, a designer, a wonderful mother and an amazing wife. I’ll be an inspirational woman.”

Support our students and help them improve their lives with get a free, high-quality education. Sponsor a student like Miriam today and help give them hope for a better future.

I just came from a home visit to meet the student newly-sponsored by Seesaw (the wonderful graphic design and branding geniuses who have partnered with St Jude’s to help us achieve our new look on a pro-bono basis). She’s in Grade 1 and doesn’t speak much English yet, but I communicated with her by drawing pictures of trees and animals in the window condensation, eliciting some smiles. It was pouring outside which created pools in the dirt roads, but after a bumpy ride, the student, the translator, Mzee, and I made it. 
 
Seeing the mother swelling with pride over her daughter going to St Jude’s was a beautiful experience. It showed me that her education matters not just abstractly the way it might for you and me but in a way that will completely change and uplift the family. (She’s already passing on information by tutoring her younger sister.) There’s hope in the mother’s eyes when her daughter shares her aspirations to become a doctor but not without the recognition that it’ll be hard work which she makes clear to me.

As a designer, it’s a unique experience to see the direct impacts of the organisation I’m working with. Normally, I finish a project and move on to the next without much feedback beyond a short email. Working on location at St Jude’s has been completely different from working remotely in Melbourne—I see the full life cycle of St Jude’s mission when I work with interns who have graduated from the school. Their stories of rising out of extreme poverty to receiving acceptances into international universities are almost unbelievable. 

Working here as a designer, there’s not much to complain about. Both my Australian and Tanzanian co-workers have welcomed me heartily. Since we’re all here as part of a bigger vision, the collaboration is natural. Plus, it’s a new and valuable opportunity to work within a marketing team instead of a group of designers. When working on a design team, the importance of look is elevated, but being here exercises my skills on clarity and function in relation to our target audience more so than anything else. The lesson of communicating with co-workers who have skills outside of design in order to reach a common goal has been invaluable, and I’ve only been here for a few weeks. I can’t wait to keep learning, to keep seeing the success of the students, and to keep designing.

ou too can have a working adventure at St Jude’s! We’re currently looking for enthusiastic, talented people to help us spread the word, so consider applying today.

Generous Aussies are about to find out how they have been instrumental in providing life-changing education in one of the world’s poorest countries.
 
Former Australian teacher Gemma Sisia opened the gates to The School of St Jude 15 years ago in Tanzania and now, thanks to the support of thousands of Australians, 1,800 promising yet impoverished students have access to a free, high-quality education.
 
Gemma and one of the inspirational students whose life has been changed by generosity, and the belief that education can combat poverty, will be in the country this month to share their story. 

Winrose Mollel graduated last year at the top of her class and was the first St Jude’s graduate to be accepted into university through The School of St Jude’s partnership with The MasterCard Foundation Scholars Program at ALA.

Later this year, Winrose will head to Trinity College in Connecticut, USA, to begin living her dream of becoming an aeronautical engineer. 

“Being offered a scholarship at St Jude’s has changed my life,” Winrose said.

“It has made such a difference and given me the assurance that I could achieve my dream which I never had before at my government school.”

Like many people in Tanzania, Winrose came from extreme poverty, growing up in a rural village where she helped her farmer father raise her younger sister and shared household duties after her mother passed when she was in primary school. 

Most girls in similar situations in Tanzania have no choice but to drop out of school, but Winrose was committed to getting an education. 

As a primary school student, she walked 2.5km to school each day, shared a desk with five others, had no books, no meals and sometimes no teacher, but she was pushed by a desire to make a brighter future for her family.

“Sometimes I got so hungry during the school day that I developed stomach ulcers. It was hard to study when there were no teachers and no books,” Winrose said. “Now, thanks to St Jude’s, somebody who didn’t know me - had no idea I existed - decided to sponsor me and I’m so thankful and proud to say it has been a good investment.”

In Tanzania, 66.6% of people do not reach secondary school and less than 3.2% make it to the final two years of school. Winrose and her fellow St Jude’s graduates are proof that we are making a difference in the fight against poverty in Tanzania.

“The School of St Jude now has about 1,800 students who have a real chance to escape poverty because they receive a free, high-quality education,” Gemma said. “It’s a dream that we’ve worked hard on, and these amazing students and their families would never have had the opportunity without the support of so many Australians.” 

Give Gemma and Winrose a true blue welcome this March!

Our school has only managed to be a success thanks to people like you!

Come along to an event to hear from Gemma and Winrose about the amazing impact you are, or can, make today. Check out the events where they will appear in March and join us in fighting poverty through education!