A joyous ceremony revealed the hard work and impressive personal growth of 40 former Form 4 students who have spent the past five months as dedicated volunteer employees of St Jude’s.
The celebration provided insight into the new Giving Back course, where students helped in many areas of the school, from the kitchen to boarding and teaching to business office roles.
“When we started this program, most of us just thought of the benefits of the certification. Now we thank you so much for giving us this opportunity. Some of us were working in areas which we had no idea about, but now we are almost specialists in those areas,” student participant Ezekiel Haji said.
Upper primary headmaster Peter Manjalla said the Giving Back program was proposed to Form 4 students as a “bridging” opportunity for their break between completing Form 4 and progressing to Form 5.
“We asked them three things: what would they like to do, how long are they are available and to write notes (about their experience),” Peter explained.
“This program helped the students to learn how to work. Not just as a student at St Jude’s, but as part of the team of workers at St Jude’s. They met many challenges, such as how to behave professionally and how to be a model to their young brothers and sisters.
“We are still looking at our mission of developing the future leaders of this country. If they can’t practice their leadership now, how can we be sure they can do it for their community? So we have to give them the opportunity.”
School founder Gemma Sisia expressed her pride and thanked students for their months of dedication to the school.
“You know, it’s very easy to learn maths and science and everything in the classrooms, but by volunteering, I think you’ll agree, you learn a lot of skills you don’t normally learn in the classroom,” Gemma said.
“I also want to thank you for being the pioneers (of the program). As you have been such wonderful pioneers, we will be doing the program again next year.”
Students who took up placements across the school shared their many positive experiences.
Olsen helped teach science in upper primary. “We had a good experience with the kids. I enjoyed teaching Standard 7 actually, they were very good. They wanted to learn more, so all of us gave what we had,” he explained. “There’s a very good feeling that comes from being a teacher.”
Two students, Simon and Irene, were stationed in the school Visitors Office and also had positive feedback.
“I worked with all different kinds of people, and after meeting some of these people I was really inspired with my career to be a university professor,” Irene said.
“We are so grateful to have had this chance, to experience the visitors team. We have increased our skills of having a sense of humour, of having confidence, and being able to handle lots of visitors and being responsible with time,” Simon said.
The new Form 5’s returned to school last week, and we look forward to seeing what more they will achieve.
To find out more about sponsoring one of our generous students click here.
The future of Tanzania is in good hands thanks to ambitious and talented St Jude's students like Benson.The Form 5 student recently placed fourth in a national essay competition, and said the inspiration came from a desire to lead his country towards a better future.
“I chose the topic of taxation." Benson said.
"The question was ‘If you were president for one day, what would you do for your country’. I thought it would be a challenge, and interesting to see what the winners would write.
“I used taxation because it is the only thing you can do for your country, for a single day, to improve your country’s economy.
"(Taxation) was the first thing I thought of, as one of my plans is to be president so I thought it could be a nice chance one day, when I am campaigning, to say there was once a competition like this and I was a winner.
"I want to do something for my country. If I miss that chance of being president, one day I want to make history in my country.”
Benson was competing at the Shule Direct Back to School Essay competition, where St Jude's has a history of impressive results.
Last year, Form 6 student Joseph, who graduated from St Jude's this May, came second in the competition for his essay about Tourism.
“I was inspired by him and I thought it would be a nice thing to participate in,” Benson said of Joseph.
“If I get the chance to write another essay, I’ll compete because now I have this experience but I could be better.”
Benson's fourth prize included 200,000 tsh (USD $100), two text books and a certificate. He was in Form 4 at the time he entered.
Benson, along with fifth and sixth-place O Level place-getters Zainabu and David, travelled to Dar es Salaam to be presented with awards for their work.
More St Jude’s students took out impressive placements, with library teacher Lightness Isojick facilitating their competition entries.
St Jude's other results at the Shule Direct Back to School Essay competition:
Here at St Jude’s we’re passionate about developing Tanzania’s next generation of leaders.
That is why it is so exciting that one of our talented students is already making a name for himself in the nation’s capital.
Form 4 student Hazzbon (pictured, left) travelled to Dodoma this month to receive an award from the Ministry of Education for his moving essay about climate change. In the essay, Hazzbon, who hopes to become a civil engineer, stressed the importance of students being educated about climate change.
“It is a major issue, not only in our country, but across the world,” he said.
Hazzbon’s essay was awarded first place in Tanzania after finishing fourth at the international Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) Secondary Schools Essay Competition in Zimbabwe.
The competition included entries from Angola, Botswana, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Seychelles, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
Hazzbon travelled to the Ministry of Education this month to receive his certificate.
He was joined by Joseph (right), another Form 4 student who impressed St Jude’s judges with his powerful essay-writing skills.
“I am personally proud of Hazzbon for his hard work and determination,” said St Jude’s librarian Lightness, who helped the students with their essays. “I must say he deserved it.”
Thirteen years after opening with just three students, St Jude's has produced its first ever Form 6 graduation class.
These students, who come from impoverished backgrounds, will become the future doctors, teachers, scientists and leaders of Tanzania.
Get to know the Class of 2015 by looking through our inaugural Year Book.
Raspberry Pi may have taken out top prize, but this was certainly no cooking competition.
The School of St Jude’s 5th annual Science Day, which featured more than 100 entries in another successful year, was topped by Venance in 4C and Martin in 3H for their “Smart House with Raspberry Pi”.
Venance and Martin spent almost a year developing their project, which enables control of many household functions (temperature, electricity supply, lighting, etc) throughout their home from the one place. It can also be controlled remotely, by mobile phone.
The students were allocated a small room to work on their project, and used Raspberry Pi, a low-cost, compact device, to program it.
The work Rickson, Aneth and Secilia put into their innovative maize sheller, made up of bicycle components, earned them second place.
Third spot was taken out by “Harvest Throughout a Year” by Ramadhani and Edson.
Mr Mcharo, Smith campus Head of Science and ICT, said school staff and students were happy with how the day, on April 24, proceeded.
He said he was excited it had featured the beginning of a new and exciting direction for the annual event.
The day-long event was proudly and generously sponsored by Bright Green Enterprise, Kiliative Solutions and Clock Tower Service Station. Thank you!
Bright Green Enterprise Executive Director Lucy Devall said it was the social enterprise education organisation’s third year running their programmes and supporting Science Day.
“Your students are some of the brightest and most able I have met throughout the past five years of working between Tanzania and UK education,” she said.
Talent from St Jude’s, Arusha Technical College , VETA – Arusha (Njiro), Arusha University, AISE-Accelerating Innovation and Social Entrepreneurship (who supported some of St Jude’s mechanical projects), Arusha University, Ngateu Secondary and Adili Secondary Schools appeared or were represented on the day.
We greatly appreciate and thank all involved.
There had to be something special happening at St Jude’s to lure our very first teacher back.
Australian volunteer Angela Bailey fondly remembers her first time living in the Arusha and volunteering at the school, so the chance to offer further support to some of the very same students she taught back in those early days was too good to pass up.
“It’s amazing, and I feel very privileged to be back here working with these kids, or young adults I should say, because they are amazing students. It has been fantastic walking through the grounds of the secondary school, getting big hugs and cool handshakes,” she said.
“I’m certainly very excited to be working with them and they seem to be very excited about it too.”
Thirteen years ago, the Sydney resident helped establish the St Jude’s, along with Gemma Sisia and Kim Saville, who have both remained at the school.
Angela became the first teacher at St Jude’s and spent three years with us, before spending the last decade working on various projects in Australia and Vietnam.
She had been back to the school to visit during that decade, but to be working here again is something rather special.
“The last time I was here was for the 10 years (anniversary), and before that it had been five years. That time I remember I was just walking around in tears, it was so emotional I could hardly even talk,” she said.
“There’s now three campuses when there was only one… more buses. More students, obviously. I notice the higher-educated teachers, through conversation with them. Moshono (village) has completely and utterly changed – there’s so many shops now, and a nightclub, a lot more people, a lot more traffic, lots of people moving to Moshono from town (Arusha)…”
Almost three years after her last visit, Angela heard murmurings of our community service and tertiary teams and knew it was the reason she would return.
She arrived at St Jude’s in early April to oversee the teams (pictured below), as part of the Beyond St Jude’s program.
Her responsibility is far from a walk in the park, with 59 of the 61 graduating students in the program volunteering to spend a year as teachers in Government-run schools before their university education begins. Angela said the hard work her excellent team had already put in was a great start.
“Gemma and I joke around - she has literally offered me so many jobs to come back over the years – and this, for me, was it. I am so passionate about the community service and I think it is such an amazing way for these kids to give back,” she said.
“There’s an opportunity to make even more of a difference here, as this education is going to spread even further, into the government schools, which I know are seriously lacking. This is why I’m so excited and passionate about this role in particular.”
Throughout the following two years she plans to spend here, Angela looks forward to seeing the success of the Beyond St Jude’s program and all the students involved.
“We’ll be giving them packages, to go out, so depending on the subjects they’re teaching they’ll have textbooks to take with them, resources, chalk, and everything they would need,” she explained.
“I hope we have a really good start on both the community service project and the tertiary. I’m hoping that by the time I leave it’s running well (of its own accord). We’re going to learn a lot in the first couple of years.”
