Each year, our international Health Check Team, local St Jude’s staff and interns work hard to ensure every facet of our students’ wellbeing is cared for.
Their long history at St Jude’s has seen many of these volunteer members return time and time again to provide invaluable service. The team listens to health concerns raised by students and their teachers and provide the expertise needed to identify potential health problems that may interfere with learning.
Team leader and student sponsor Dr Philippa Binns, who has been part of the team for the past eight years, has continued to facilitate the two-week process. She is happy to see the school continue to assist families of students with conditions that require further management by appropriate local health care providers.
This year, the team had counselling expertise and the ability to screen hearing, in addition to the usual routine eyesight, height, weight and general health checks.
“The objective of counselling is to enhance student wellbeing and, in enhancing student wellbeing, you’re going to enhance the academic performance,” social worker Dan Baschiera said.
Dan, a student sponsor with almost 40 years’ experience as a social worker, came to St Jude’s last year and completed a needs assessment.
“The teachers here (at St Jude’s) have very good collective care skills, and the training I’ve been doing this year has been to enhance this awareness,” he said.
Dan also identified a need to secure continued access to student counselling services and a local mental health facility with which St Jude’s student wellbeing would be enhanced by strengthened ties.
Meanwhile, when teacher for the deaf and student sponsor Glenys Abrahams visited St Jude’s in 2016 and discovered the health checks did not include formal hearing loss screening, she saw an area she could help with.
“When I was last here I spoke to Gemma and, and she put me in touch with Dr Pip so I discussed it with her, and it’s now being piloted this year,” she said.
She reached out to her network to find the necessary equipment for testing, and throughout the past fortnight, Glenys and her colleagues have screened all students in Grade 1 and Form 1, as well as those students where they or their teacher have been concerned about their hearing.
The visiting team of 20 employed their skills to ensure the health and wellbeing of our primary and secondary students. Not only were students’ mental and audio welfare checked, but experts in general medicine, orthoptics, physiotherapy, nursing and even a paramedicine student, also ensured their skills were put to good use. They were ably assisted by St Jude’s staff, including recently graduated interns.
Many thanks to: Doctors Philippa Binns (team leader), Philip Bookallil, Craig Boutlis, Jenny Davis, Catherine Foley, Lee Wuen Meakin, Gordon Mor; Orthoptists Emily Burnham, Kylie Robinson, Julie Taylor, Kahina Terbah; Hearing check members Glenys Abrahams (teacher for the deaf) and June Jorgensen (teacher); Counsellors Dan Baschiera (social worker), Nina van Breugel (social worker) and Janene Hill (school psychologist); Helpers Nichola Heagney (bachelor of paramedicine student), Jane Larkin (physiotherapist), Belinda Lock (nurse) and John Mor (logistician). We hope you enjoyed your visit and we appreciate your work!
See the important work the Medical Check Team are doing at St Jude’s in this video. Find out how you can contribute here.
Leadership is a quality we work hard to instill in our students here at St Jude’s, and one of our Beyond St Jude’s interns has stepped up to show how it’s done.
Daudi, a Community Service Year intern who has been busy teaching commerce and bookkeeping at his government school, recently arranged for some of his students and fellow teachers to visit St Jude’s and share their pursuit of a high-quality, fulfilling education.
“The point of this trip was not to show them how good the students at St Jude’s have it, it was to inspire them to keep learning, even though their resources are few,” Daudi said of the day trip.
“I want my students to connect with others who are passionate about their studies, and to see how other students take their studies seriously. Many of my students are simply at school because their parents brought them here, but now they can see that there are goals to achieve. Talking to St Jude’s students will hopefully inspire them and also create connections and new friendships.”
Thirty-one of Daudi’s Njiro Secondary School students, as well as four of his fellow staff members, arrived at our secondary campus to take a tour of the campus, a Q and A session with our teachers and sit in on a class.
“Your students are clearly leaders already. They are confident and outspoken and also open with their teachers,” Njiro Secondary teacher Kileiyo Thomas said. “I hope our students can learn to become leaders like these students. Our students don’t believe in themselves, but they should!”
Daudi decided to give back to his community before pursuing higher education, by working as an intern teacher through our Beyond St Jude’s program. He graduated from St Jude’s last year, and is currently one of only two commerce teachers in the entire Njiro Secondary of 434 students!
The first group of community service interns who gave back to their communities by serving in under-resourced government schools taught about 10,000 students that otherwise would not have had teachers.
In a country where the population averages just five years of schooling, and 66.6% of people do not reach secondary school, our CSY interns are making an inspirational impact.
“They’ve now seen that I come from an educational background that would have allowed me to continue straight on to university, but chose to help those in need first, so I hope that they will do the same for their community one day,” he said.
Before the day was over the students had planned more activities and excursions for the future. We are so proud of Daudi for promoting education in Arusha and for going above and beyond for this community!
Help more of our high school graduates give back to their communities and fight poverty through education! Support Beyond St Jude’s interns by emailing sponsorbeyond@schoolofstjude.co.tz for more information today.
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.
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.
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.
Our EarlyAct and Interact clubs are now official members of the international Rotary family!
Their initial hard work was officially recognised with a celebratory event filled with fanfare, songs and inspirational words late last year. This “Installation” event featured guests from Rotary groups in the Netherlands and Belgium, and those clubs closer to home welcomed them with open arms.
“To the students of St Jude’s, I recommend you to ask us, as your local Usa Rotary Club, if you need help with your community projects as we will be there to help you,” Usa River Rotary President Rebecca Saunder said.
Rebecca spoke about the benefits of the global Rotary family and, along with our school founder Gemma and fellow local Rotary district assistant governor Anna Rweyemamu, gave certificates to each of the EarlyAct and Interact students.
EarlyAct and Interact are Rotary-associated clubs that help teach the important Rotary message of service above self. EarlyAct is designed for students between five and 13, while Interact is for our students aged between 12 and 18.
Each elated EarlyAct and Rotaract student received a certificate, handshake and praise for their hard work to set up the clubs and become officially installed. Gemma was clearly impressed by their achievement.
“All of our students involved in Rotary really put St Jude’s values into practice, they represent the school wherever they go,” she said.
Our EarlyAct students value their newly-recognised club, as they spoke of what they would like to achieve with Rotary over this school year.
“I want to have more kindness in our community,” Anthia in Grade 3 said.
“I need a clean environment and more children to play with,” Noreen in Grade 6 said.
As an Interact member, Eric in Form 2 has really taken the club to heart.
“I wanted to join our Interact club to have the opportunity to help people around the world and to build friendships among those living around me,” he said.
“I heard about Rotary from the community work they do. Rotary came to my aunt’s village for a project that helps preserve the rain, so I decided to join Interact and help too.”
Rotary is strong at St Jude with over 70 members across both groups and room to grow. Keep an eye out to see what they achieve next!
We’re proud that our Interact and EarlyAct clubs are now officially part of the global Rotary family. You can help spread the word of our school, and how it has thrived thanks to our Rotary relationship, by downloading a presentation pack here.
