Schools from around the region are invited to compete with Arusha’s most passionate young scientists at The School of St Jude’s 6th Annual Science Fair on April 23.
The 2016 Science Fair promises to be one of the most exciting days on the school calendar, with top science students from Arusha competing at St Jude’s Usa River campus for a range of prizes.
“We’re building a community of young scientists here in Arusha and the results each year have been very impressive,” said Nzinyangwa G. Mcharo, St Jude’s Head of Department for Physics and Assistant Academic Master.
“The projects that are on display at our Science Fair will one day help solve the problems facing many people in Tanzania.”
This year’s Science Fair is sponsored by Tanzania-based Benson Security Systems, which is supporting the awards and prizes that go to the winners.
Individual projects can win up to TSH 250,000 and a total of TSH 1.6 million will be awarded to budding scientists on the day.
Schools interested in attending must supply at least two students, a project and a teacher.
St Jude’s Acting Secondary Headmaster Nestory Msoffe said it was important to build a network of scientists in Arusha.
“The School of St Jude is committed to producing future scientists who can lead the way to a better Tanzania,” Mr Msoffe said.
“We know that building a better Tanzania means we need to make an impact outside the school gates, which is why we invite other schools to participate in our Science Fair.
“This relationship is helping us build a network of young scientist who will become the future engineers, physicists and innovators who will drive Tanzania forward in the future.”
Schools interested in attending the 6th Annual Science Fair can email nzinyangwa.m@schoolofstjude.co.tz to book a spot.
World Rotaract Week may have finished on Sunday, but our Rotaract and Interact clubs are just getting started!
After being voted in by their peers last month, Rotaract President Julieth and Interact President Lisa are whole-heartedly seizing the chance to lead our clubs to do the best for their community.
“A good leader must put the people’s interest before his or her personal interests, and must never feel that by being a leader they are above other people,” Julieth explained.
“Being a leader means that people trust you, give you a chance and believe you had the potential to lead them towards achieving a certain goal. We will achieve a lot for our community through Rotaract, and I am looking forward to seeing people in the community smile because of what we have done.”
Julieth has thrived at St Jude’s for the past 13 years, but she has not forgotten the difficulties her family has faced as part of living in a developing country.
Her family’s home is like many in Tanzania – with no plumbing and intermittent electricity; water is collected from a nearby tap for a small monthly fee and meals are prepared over a basic charcoal-fuelled stove or outdoors over a wood fire.
She’s committed to solving the problems facing families in Tanzania and sees Rotary as the perfect way to use her education to make people’s lives better.
Julieth and her fellow future Rotarians are already making a difference in their local communities. Under Julieth and Lisa’s flourishing leadership, our 110 eager students have been busy getting plenty of community service projects into gear with the Rotary motto of ‘service above self’ in mind.
The first group of St Jude’s Rotaract and Interact students have already been out to King’ori, where a new water harvesting system is providing clean rain water to students for the first time. Eventually, seven government schools will each receive a system through the project, which is run by NGO Save the Rain. Our responsible Rotaract and Interact students helped out by conducting basic health checks (measuring height, weight, etc) with students.
Our Roteract and Interact clubs’ commitment to community improvement also saw them busy cleaning up the school and surrounding grounds over the last weekend.
“I believe there are people out there who need a helping hand,” Julieth said, explaining why she’s looking forward to seeing more of what Rotaract and Interact can do.
“What Rotary is trying to do is to bring happiness into the world and, through their actions, change lives. I can’t wait to see people’s smiles and how their lives might be changed by a simple act of kindness."
St Jude’s sponsor and Australian Rotaractor Seb Cox has been busy finalising the official co-sponsor paperwork to have approved by Rotary International, as well as helping arrange projects.
We’re look forward to seeing what else they have in store!
You don't consistently rank in the top 10% nationally without a serious focus on classroom education, but here at St Jude's we know that future leaders need more than just impressive exam results.
Our approach extends beyond the classroom and into every facet of St Jude's life, producing community-focused leaders with strong skills and values.
These photos from our boarding campuses at Moivaro and Usa River give you a sneak peak into every day life and show our holistic approach in action.
Those bright uniforms you see when you visit don't stay bright without regular cleaning - especially with all the running around our students do.
Both boarding campuses are equipped with washing stations so our students can wash their clothes, a valuable step in becoming mature, self-sufficient young adults.
Our students understand the importance of the finer details. That's why they spend time on the little things like shining their shoes.
Cleaning doesn't have to be a chore, especially when you're surrounded by friends who are happy to help.
At St Jude's, we believe you reap what you sow - and the garden is a perfect place to learn this lesson.
Gardening is an important Extra-Curricular Activity at St Jude's, especially with agriculture playing such a vital role in Tanzania's future.
Our budding green thumbs help look after the gardens, which help provide the food for their meals. And they have fun while they're doing it!
Cleaning up after 1400 boarding students could be a lot of work!
Thankfully, our students take an active role in cleaning up after themselves, learning responsibility and how to appreciate their surroundings.
Our boarding campuses have rooms where our students can revise and study under the supervision of helpful and experienced boarding parents.
All work and no play is never a good idea.
That's why our campuses are fitted with football fields, basketball courts, volleyball courts - and even a badminton court.
Not only is sport a great way to socialise and cultivate a spirit of teamwork, it keeps our students fit and healthy.
Football is a favourite for boys and girls (and they don't always stick to the field!).
We're fighting poverty through education - so it helps to be strong. That's why some of our secondary school students enjoy working out with cleverly-conceived gym equipment!
The result: not only are our students excelling in the classroom, our holistic approach is creating happy and healthy community-focused leaders with strong skills and values.
If you want to support these students, make a donation to an area you're passionate about.
Talented breakdancer and soon-to-be senior student Dorcas may yearn to hit the dance floor during school holidays, but instead she has decided to give up the last three months to help others.
“I like working, keeping myself busy and doing stuff that helps people,” she said, explaining why she signed up for St Jude’s annual Form 4 volunteering program.
“I was happy with any position because I really just wanted to do it.”
More than 15 volunteer roles in various departments were available from December to February, with Dorcas landing a spot in the Sponsor Relations team at our primary campus.
“I’ve learnt lots of skills like working with lots of different people,” she said, explaining that her role included helping students with their sponsor communications and organising photos.”
When she’s not volunteering at school or helping her mum, a single parent of four, Dorcas is getting her groove on at Via Via Café, a dance venue in Arusha.
“I like doing hip hop and I’m good at girls’ hip hop, which we call ‘chicky pop’, but I like breakdancing the most,” she said, explaining that most of the moves require power and balance.
“But I’m really busy now so I don’t have much time to train… Practice starts at 5pm, but when I get home I have to wash my clothes, do cleaning, fetch some water, help mum cook, and then time is up – no time for practice.
“I’ve got some mates from school who dance and we would practice every free time we would get – after school and on weekends and public holidays.”
Dorcas’ past few months have proven her appreciation for both the past 11 years of a free, high-quality education at St Jude’s, and the encouragement her supportive mother has given her.
“It’s been great having Docas with us the past few months,” Sponsor Relations’ long-serving employee and Dorcas’ mentor, Lucy Cole, said.
“She’s always ready to help, no matter what the task is, always gets it done, and is simply a nice person to have around.”
Dorcas will start her final two years of school later this year and after she graduates she plans on doing community service through Beyond St Jude’s before going to university, possibly to study medicine.
If you’d like to support a breakdancing, volunteering future doctor like Dorcas, find out about our sponsorship programs.
FORM Six graduate Suleiman remembers the moment when he had to step up and become a leader in the visitors’ team.
The aspiring doctor chose to spend this year in our Visitors’ team through the Beyond St Jude’s community service program, developing his skills and helping the supporters who made his free education possible.
“When I started, I had to do mostly paperwork, then (Visitors Coordinator) Bernadetta put me in charge of a tour group and I will always treasure that responsibility,” Suleiman said.
“I did the itinerary, prepared the room, booked trips, and when they came I took them to an orphanage and I just found myself crying as I helped heating milk and changing diapers.”
An orphan himself, Suleiman was determined to showcase ‘the real Arusha’ to his charge of visitors.
The next day he took his guests to Plaster House, which offers pre and post-operative care to children undergoing corrective surgeries, and TanzHandz which provides education and employment opportunities to people with disabilities.
“That day was intensely emotional; one of the girls in the group started to say something and then she fainted in my hands. As I was taking her to the doctor, next door, two more girls fainted.”
As group leader, Suleiman took it upon himself to comfort the young women.
“I said to the whole group, you should be thankful for what you have seen, you should be happy. There are so many out there who do not have these chances and maybe they are even more desperate,” he said.
“Then I said, when you go back to Australia, you should not take anything for granted and always live a life mindful of those who have less.”
Enock is Suleiman’s best friend. All of our 2015 graduates placed in the top 10% of Tanzania in their national exams, and Enock finished right alongside Suleiman, at the top of the top. He also interns in our Visitors center.
“We like it so much,” Enock said. “We meet all these different visitors, we sit together with them and they are smiling and that is really nice, and it’s a very regular feeling for us.
“By the end of a visit you always end up treating a visitor more like family than a friend and when they are leaving you feel it, you know.”
Enock was one of the very first students to be accepted at St Jude’s and, like Suleiman, he has had a steep learning curve this year, literally – in the course of his internship he has summited Mt Kilimanjaro!
Enock was assistant coordinator on a Kili climb and personally took it upon himself to make sure every participant summited.
Both interns discuss ‘growing out of responsibility’ and how, in hindsight, they have learnt and matured a lot.
Responsibilities don’t end when they leave the office, though. Both Sule and Enock taught in government schools after graduating Form 4, and they continue to tutor every night after work.
“We teach in the afternoons, evenings and weekends now, kids from different government schools in our neighborhood, so even though we are here in the Visitors' center in the day, we also get to teach,” Suleiman said.
Fifty of our inaugural graduates chose to participate in the Community Service Program, some like Suleiman and Enock are interning at St Jude’s, and the bulk are teaching approximately 10,000 students across 18 government schools. All together, our graduates log over 2000 volunteer hours a week.
“One of the things I enjoy most in my life is meeting new people, so community service, like the word itself, community, I love!” Enock said, when asked to reflect on this year and if he would change anything.
“And my time working in the visitor’s center, I loved, I still love.”
If you want to share a smile and become part of Suleiman and Enock’s family before they head off to university, start planning a visit to St Jude’s today – We Love Visitors.
When The School of St Jude was just a twinkle in Gemma Sisia’s eye, it was her local Rotary members who helped fundraise and eventually build our first classrooms.
Rotary’s motto of ‘service above self,’ must have stuck in the brickwork, because in March, St Jude’s students will officially launch Rotary branches of their own.
The Interact and Rotaract clubs of St Jude will be run by secondary students between the ages of 12-18 and 18-30 respectively.Both clubs will be coordinated by St Jude’s sponsor Seb Cox, a 21-year-old education student and Rotaractor from Canberra.
“Gemma has always had the floating idea of starting Rotary clubs here as the organisation has helped the school so much – she just needed a person willing to come over and do it,” Seb said.
Seb gauged student interest in Rotary by holding a special assembly at our secondary campus, designed to introduce students to the organisation’s mission and achievements.
Prominent local Rotarians Revocatus, St Jude’s secondary Second and Academic Master, and Anna Rweyemam, Arusha Mt Meru Rotary club president, gave inspiring presentations during the assembly and motivated over 250 students to vie for the 80 Interact and 60 Rotaract positions available.
Successful applicants were invited to stand for leadership positions within the clubs.
Rotary rules require clubs to carry out two service projects a year: one that helps their school or community and one that promotes international understanding. New clubs must also be sponsored by existing Rotary branches.
Julieth in Form 5 was the only female to stand for the position of Rotaract President – and she won! She was also one of the 10 lucky students invited to attend a meeting of the Usa River Rotary Club, which will co-sponsor the St Jude’s clubs with the Rotary Club of Arusha Mt Meru.
In her stump speech for club president, Julieth discussed partnering with Usa River on rain water harvesting projects as well as her motivation for joining Rotaract. “I wanted to be part of Rotaract because it would be selfish of me not to give back with what I have learned and been given at St Jude,” she said.
"Although I might not be rich enough to feed the hungry population – I believe there are skills I have, there are jobs I can do, there are stories I can share with my community to make it a better place and I believe Rotary will allow me to do this.”
After the elections, club members attended weekend training camps where they looked at Rotary projects from all over the world before honing in on possible service projects using Rotary’s procedure for identifying areas of need within Rotary’s areas of focus.
Presidents of our generous sponsor clubs will meet with President Julieth and her Interact counterpart, Lisa (also the only girl who ran) later this week to officially sign off and launch both clubs.
Stay tuned to learn more about the projects our Interactors and Rotaractors will engage in or talk to your local Rotary club about helping St Jude’s.
