Mary always had the talent and determination to become a future leader of Tanzania. Thanks to St Jude's, she now has the opportunity.
The phenomenal 14-year-old was the top student out of 359 Standard 7s in her severely under-resourced primary school but would not have been able to finish high school without St Jude's.
Her mother, Juilet, is a hard-working single woman raising two children without any support since her ex-husband left her two years ago.
"I couldn't afford the fees to send my girls to high school," says Juilet, who works six days per week selling vegetables at local markets for roughly AUD$23-$26.
Mary entered St Jude's in 2015 as a first-year high school student and excelled immediately, receiving As in physics, maths, Swahili, biology, chemistry, history and commerce in her first term at the school.
"I've always like to study and at St Jude's we have everything you need to study," Mary says.
"In my old school we had 126 students in our class and it was very hard. At St Jude's we've got very small classes and teachers who pay us attention and help us learn."
Providing education to girls like Mary is critical in Tanzania, where most girls are out of school before their 12th birthday and just 21% of the female population receives secondary schooling.
At St Jude's, Mary will receive an education that consistently ranks in the top 10% in Tanzania and produced some of the top high school graduates in the country in 2015.
The Beyond St Jude's team will also support Mary as she goes to university to study medicine so she can become a doctor.
"My dream is to become a doctor so I can help people," Mary says. "Now that I'm at St Jude's, this is possible."
Form 5 student Elias’s remote Maasai village has already started hailing him as the doctor. They hold faith in this promising young man and his determination to work in the medical field to help his own people.
“My aim of becoming a doctor is to help myself, to help with my society, to help Tanzania and to help the world,” said Elias.
As a young boy he lived in a boma, a traditional Maasai mud dwelling in Ilkurot, an area outside of Arusha, with his father, mother, sisters and a brother. Growing up in that community, he became aware of the issues it faced.
“In my community there are so many challenges, mainly because of a lack of education, especially health education.” he said. “Sometimes it is very hard to get the transport to go to town or the hospital, and many people especially in my village don’t know the importance of visiting the hospital or using modern drugs.”
He began his studies at a local government school but his heart was set on getting the best education so he could one day provide medical services to his village. He applied to study at St Jude’s and, in Form 1, started his free, high-quality education at the school.
When he moved to Form 3 he wasn’t placed in Science because he hadn’t met the academic criteria. However, he shared with St Jude’s his great ambition to become a doctor and the strategies he had to help his community. He was allowed to move to Science and obtained Division 1, (the highest grade) in Physics, Chemistry and Biology, which is the combination he’s currently studying in Form 5.
“I hope society will be inspired by me and from there they can follow me,” he said. “I see so many people who don’t get an education because of poverty.”
Education, however, is currently lifting 1,852 impoverished students at St Jude’s out of poverty. Right now, Elias feels blessed that he is able to study the science subjects he is passionate about and is keeping an eye on his dreams.
Encouraging him along the way are the people in his village who see him as a sign of hope for the future and someone who will bring about meaningful change in health and education in their community.
“I’m happy and appreciate so many people calling me Doctor, as they motivate me and I’m already doing a lot to help them by seeing them, doing work and getting them help when they need it,” he said.
Almost a quarter of young women aged 15-24 today (116 million) in developing countries have never completed primary school and, consequently, lack the skills necessary for gaining meaningful employment (source: UNESCO).
Those who miss out on going to school soon lose hope, and are forced to give up their career aspirations. Yet, when you ‘educate a woman, you educate a nation;’ (old African proverb) and some special St Jude’s students are making sure that Tanzanian women won’t be left behind in their mission to fight poverty through education.
Joyce, Christina, Irene, Martha and Monica are passionate about empowering women. Their idea started off as a seed when they held an exhibit at our Careers Day on the importance of giving women a voice, and displayed inspirational quotes and pictures of women from across the globe that are making their mark on society.
“We held a workshop, telling girls about their rights and that they’re powerful even if they are not educated,” said Irene.
However, our students knew that there was a female empowerment message which needed to be spread far and wide in their communities. In nearby villages, many young girls are dropping out of school for a range of reasons including falling pregnant.
To combat this, the girls have used their own initiative and recently held a forum about topical women's issues at a packed church in Arusha. They divided the topics into two categories; for women it was ‘Women and the family,’ while for girls, it was ‘Girls, do you understand yourselves?’ They wanted to get rid of the sensitivities surrounding both topics so women of all ages could have a frank discussion on what needs to change or improve.
“We also talked about managing your income if you’re not employed; at least do something so you can get an income. In addition, we also talked about health and maintaining peace in the family because sometimes you find it is an issue in some African families,” said Irene.
The issues began to run deeper, though, as the girls encouraged the younger women at the forum to be comfortable about their appearance. “I talked to the girls about their black skin and most of them don’t think it’s good enough or presentable, and I told them that they should be proud of the colour of their skin and that they should never use chemicals to lighten it,” said Christina.
The students also talked about natural beauty, health, nutrition and taking care of one’s self.
The forum took a different turn, however, when men decided they wanted to be a part of it. “That was something that was really interesting during that day. We thought it’d be a few women there when we started, but eventually we saw men coming in to give their opinions,” said Joyce. The church became very full and people of all ages were contributing their ideas and input to the forum.
The forum was a big success and the pastor of the church praised the girls on their program and the information they passed on to the audience. Their project is continuing to flourish and they are now planning to head out to visit girls and women in rural areas of the Arusha region, including in the Maasai land.
“We will go to those areas and tell them how they can succeed in this life, because no matter what their age is - 30, 50 or whatever - they can still do something with their lives,” said Joyce. “Their age doesn't matter; what matters is their willingness and motivation to do something.
In under a year, our first set of students will do something they once thought would never be possible - graduate from secondary school. Many of them have been with our school since its early days, studying hard so they can pass their national exams and achieve high marks to get into their chosen university or secure a job.
There are some Form 6 students who only started at St Jude‟s last year and have come through years of government schooling. Their education took place in classrooms filled with more than a hundred students, often sharing only one textbook between them.
Coupled with that, they were being taught often by poorly qualified teachers, due to a lack of teacher training colleges in the country.
Yet, in the face of these immense challenges they proved that they desperately wanted to learn and, after going through an application process, were accepted into St Jude‟s. Now their futures are looking brighter, but some of these older students are still unsponsored and need your help.
Since starting at St Jude‟s last year, Pascal has kept up his commitment and strong work ethic towards his studies, managing to get A-level results in almost all of his subjects. It has not been an easy road for him. He grew up in Karatu, a remote area about two hours away from Arusha with his mother, who is a farmer, along with seven brothers and sisters. His father passed away when he was young. Most of his siblings only made it to the end of primary school for their education.
Pascal went to a school in Karatu, which like many other government schools in the country, did not have proper materials, books, equipment and teachers.
Adding to the challenge was that he could not speak any Swahili or English when he started secondary school, as it was not properly taught at his former school. His mother also did not know either language. Pascal could only speak the language of his Iraqw tribe but he did not let this deter him.
He could not stand to fall behind in his studies, so during his holidays he would do extra work with his friends and other local children and they would share things they had learnt with each other. By the time Pascal got to Form 4, he had improved his ability to speak and understand Swahili and English. He and his friends had created an education for themselves.
Over time, Pascal heard about the high-quality education at St Jude‟s and knew it was an opportunity to realise his dreams. He sat our Form 5 entrance tests for Chemistry, Physics and Biology and passed all of them. His hard work paid off when he got accepted into our school. He now loves having his own set of textbooks and learning at St Jude‟s, which strives to have great resources.
Pascal is now closer to his dream of becoming an Environmental Management Officer so he can protect the natural resources in his country.
“There is much misuse of natural resources in Tanzania and elsewhere and I think if I was in that position, I would have the knowledge to educate the people and pass on information about how to look after the environment,” he said.
Our Form 3 student, Wenseslaus, has had an amazing opportunity. He had an exciting time away at the African Leadership Academy in Johannesburg, South Africa, learning about leadership building and teamwork. This trip is part of a prize that he won for coming third in the International Youth Day Essay Competition last year. He was the only Tanzanian among the winners.
Here is the reflection Wenseslaus wrote about his time at the academy:
African Leadership Academy
During the three weeks in South Africa I felt very privileged as the only young boy from Tanzania. I met around 44 other students from all over the world. Everything was exciting to me starting from my departure from Tanzania to my arrival in South Africa. I am now experienced with all the travelling bureaucratic procedures out of my country. I also had a chance to experience other people‟s culture.
African Leadership Academy is one of the places I had for a long time wished to be because I used to see it in the media, but I couldn‟t believe I was there at last. During the stay we did a lot of experiments to do with leadership and entrepreneurship. They were so helpful to me because they changed my mind set and how I used to think.
Touring around Johannesburg
We also went on a tour to different parts of Johannesburg. We visited three museums, Nelson Mandela‟s museum, Hector Peterson‟s museum and the Cradle of Human Kind museum. I enjoyed Cradle of Human Kind museum the most because we went on a boat ride and could see volcano rocks, ice and fire on the sides of the river all inside the same museum.
We also visited three houses where Nelson Mandela lived. We went to Pilanesburg National Park where we could see cheetahs, elephants, zebras, antelopes and wildebeests. We went hiking in a place called kloof waters. The tallest building in South Africa is another place we visited. It was a 50 story building and we could see the whole of Johannesburg.
Furthermore we visited some very famous streets in Johannesburg like Soweto, Alexander and Hillbrow. In these places we saw how other people live.
Back at the academy we had teachings and classes on very interesting lessons like identity, need identification, proactivity, project planning, emotional intelligence, public speaking and lastly, seminal readings. In the seminal reading we read articles about the history of South Africa and all the people who contributed to the struggle for independence. We were also asked to do a project on need identification and my group was very successful. Also my house won a certificate for the best presentation of our project. I personally won a humility award.
Hundreds of students from The School of St Jude proudly celebrated Tanzanian, African and other nationalities at its recent Cultural Day held at its secondary campus.
The students did a range of creative performances spanning from hip hop, modern and traditional African dances as well as drama pieces showing a tribal King’s lunch and the hard work of African mamas.
“It was wonderful to see the creativity and imagination of the students,” said St Jude’s School Director Jon Ford. “It shows the wide range of skills our students have as well as the amazing academic achievements in the National Exam, including recently scoring 90 per cent Division 1 in the Form 4 mock exam.”
The fashion show was a highlight of the day with the students spending hours stitching together unique, colourful designs using kitenge, other East African fabrics and local produce including maize and leaves. It was a mark of respect for their culture but students also used Australian and US designs to show their appreciation of other nationalities.
“I used kanga, tissue paper, plastics and wood as they were local resources I could easily find,” said Anastazia, Form 3 student at St Jude’s. “My dad is a tailor so I feel sewing is in me as I love designing.”
Anastazia’s well-crafted clothes caught the eye of the judges and she won overall first prize and for her fashion label, Nyumbani Design.
Two talented St Jude’s secondary musicians, Elisante and Dorcas put on a top performance and were surprised and excited to receive a recording session given by sponsor, Fnouk Studios, for their efforts.
“I was really impressed by the students’ designs and performances and how Cultural Day builds a lot of confidence with the kids,” said Sune Mushendwa, Director of Fnouk Studios.
The event’s other sponsor, Kase Stores Ltd, gave book vouchers for the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place overall winners.
Guests of honour included Miss Arusha Lillian Deus and Hisia, a Tanzanian singer and songwriter based in Nairobi who gave an inspirational speech on stage to the students about facing hard times in life.
“From an artist perspective, we have to do everything, when the road is rough and there are a lot of challenges, don’t let the challenges get you down, shake off the dirt and keep going,” said Hisia.
