Each year St Jude’s begins the long, difficult but very important task of choosing its newest Grade 1 class. This year, we did things a little differently, inviting the top 10 students from every local government school to come and sit our entrance test.
Gemma said, “This change will better allow us to offer the most deserving students and families the chance at a St Jude’s education and while I wish we could offer every student in Arusha the chance of a scholarship, this just isn’t possible. We felt this change made the whole process fairer.”
The nearly 1,000 students who were invited began to arrive bright and early, armed with their invitation letters, pencils and a determination to succeed. The students first sat a reading test, with those who passed moving onto a written test. The successful students then underwent a documents check to ensure they meet our age and other entry requirements.
Of the nearly 1,000 students who tried only 117 passed this first stage. Those who passed will now undergo our strict poverty assessment. Organised by our Community Relations team, this stage of the process allows us to ensure that every St Jude’s scholarship is gifted to a student whose life will change the most.
We can’t wait to introduce you to the deserving new students early next year when they begin at St Jude’s!
Want to help St Jude's give these students the education they deserve? Donate to Learning Resources today!
We are fortunate to have generous supporters across the world, and are excited to announce that some of our amazing American friends have made it even easier for US supporters to help fight poverty through education.
The American Friends of the School of St Jude, Tanzania, Inc. has a new website which allows US supporters to give to St Jude’s with easy, tax-deductible contributions!
Our American Friends have been working hard to ensure St Jude’s US fundraising efforts are officially recognized as a 501(c)(3) public charity. Now we’re celebrating the American Friends organization being granted official tax-exempt status! EIN 47-3077055
This means that donations from the US will no longer go through a third party financial provider, so more of your donation will come directly to the school.
That will help us continue to foster the next generation of leadership in Tanzania, by providing a free, high-quality education to approximately 1,800 of the poorest and brightest students in Arusha.
And you aren’t just helping our students have a brighter future.
Our holistic approach and extended national curriculum is creating community-focused leaders with strong skills and values, a vital contribution to a country where 93% of the adult population has no secondary education.
You’ll also help support local families, as our school purchases local ingredients for 31,000 meals each week. From January to December in 2015 St Jude’s injected over $3,254,000 USD into our local community through purchasing, services and wages. In fact, 98% of our total expenditure benefits the surrounding community, not to mention the 19,256 hours our hard-working local staff members spend volunteering each year in their local communities.
The American Friends website is now accepting donations and sponsorship payments, and US supporters with monthly auto-deductions can easily make the switch by clicking here.
All supporters can now be confident that any financial donations are tax-deductible to the full extent of the law.
You can also help St Jude’s by letting us know of any American government and foundation grants we may be eligible for.
Finally, find out more about our excellent American Friends board and its members here.
Celebrate with us today by donating to American Friends of School of St Jude!
We’re still the same School of St Jude, with the same people providing the same high quality education to approximately 1,800 primary and secondary students in Tanzania.
So why the change? As you probably know, the school itself has grown substantially in its first 14 years. We wanted a new look and feel that reflects where we are now. And we wanted it to show the energy, the trust, the welcoming spirit and the professionalism we’re known for.
This will help us attract more international philanthropy, but at its heart, our new look is really about being proud of who we are and what we’re achieving for the community. Now and into the future.We have been so lucky to have two wonderful partners who are helping us achieve this new look, graphic design and branding geniuses Seesaw and web development gurus eFront. Both of these amazing companies have partnered with St Jude’s to help us achieve our new look on a pro-bono basis and for this we wanted to thank them.
The first part of this process is the launch of our new logo and an update of our website’s landing page. Over the coming months and into the new year you will see more changes as we introduce the rest of our new look. We hope you are as excited about this next step as we are!
Check out the rebrand concept video from Seesaw.
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.
Meet Norah – the face of the Accounts department! She enjoys interacting with visitors at the accounts window as well as her work behind the scenes making sure that every dollar and cent is accounted for.
A busy mother of one, Norah loves nothing more than relaxing and watching movies with her family in the evening. Norah and her daughter are particular fans of the zombie genre!
Though some may find accounting for a school the size of ours as terrifying as zombies, Norah has found that it is her forte.
Norah came to St Jude’s with previous experience as a cashier and enjoys assisting visitors from around the world exchange their foreign currency.
With a smile that can light up even an accounting office, Norah especially enjoys the office camaraderie at our school.
“St Jude’s is a family” Norah said.
“We are all here together. It’s not just a job. We’re all working together to do something important in our country.”
Community service and engagement is paramount in Norah’s professional and personal life. Instead of relying solely on a bank account for income, Norah is part of a small local community co-operative (called a 'kikoba' in Tanzania).
Every month each member contributes an amount, for example 20,000 Tanzanian shillings (approx $12 AUD), which is managed by a voluntary chairman, accountant and secretary chosen from the group. They meet every month to discuss the fund and to hear members' requests for loans to improve their homes or to start up local businesses.
“This is common in Tanzania” Norah says. “The community comes together to help each other meet their needs and provide for the future.”
The phrase ‘ask a busy person and they will get it done for you’ completely applies to Norah. In addition to her job, home life and further studies in accounting at Arusha University, she also helps those in need.
To help make a positive change in her community Norah does not rest on Sundays. Instead she is part of the Catholic Women of Tanzania Association (WAWATA) that provides much needed community services and social economic empowerment activities to many in Arusha.
“People here are very poor and sleep in poor conditions. They can have five kids and sleep in one room,” Norah says.
“The father may be jobless and the mother may only able to work small jobs such as washing clothes for 2,000TZS per day ($1.20 AUD) so I volunteer wherever I can.”
We are so lucky to have people like Norah championing our school’s mission both inside and outside its walls.
Stay tuned for another staff profile in September and – if you’d like to discuss the exchange rate, women’s empowerment or World War Z with Norah – come visit us!
When you support St Jude’s you aren’t just providing free education to the poorest and brightest students in Arusha. You are supporting nearly 300 talented, dedicated staff members who are committed to fighting poverty in their country. In our Staff Spotlight series we’ll introduce you’ll get to know these impressive members of the St Jude’s family. This month, meet Vivian Deus, a superstar in our Beyond St Jude’s team whose talent is only matched by her commitment to our graduates.
She’s an in-demand fashion designer who teaches law in her spare time – but the thing that makes Vivian Deus a perfect role model for our St Jude’s graduates is her commitment to making a difference in her community.
“I love what I do because I get to work with the graduates and help them become the leaders of Tanzania,” Vivian says.
“What I tell our graduates when they come to me for advice is they’ve got to find something they love and use it to make a difference.”
Vivian has been a key part of our Beyond St Jude’s (BSJ) team since joining 18 months ago and helping our first Form 6 graduates during the inaugural Community Service Year (CSY).
Her role in the team is to help graduates during their CSY and give them guidance as they prepare for higher education, while also communicating with St Jude’s supporters.
The hard-working 27-year-old is the perfect example of versatility and living proof that you can always find time to follow your passion.
“When I was in primary school I was in Arusha and we did fashion shows, and the passion started growing in me,” she said. “My step-mum was very crafty, and I learnt a lot from her. She made me grow that passion.”
Vivian started designing in 2014, and when she wasn’t in the BSJ office she worked many odd hours to pursue clothing design and production from home.
“I also branched out into accessory-making with a local lady,” she said.
Vivian’s clothing and jewellery have become a hit at St Jude’s and word has been getting around town, so she has started a small business to help keep up with demand.
On top of being one of St Jude’s most dedicated staff members and a budding fashion mogul, Vivian teaches law part-time.
Her teaching internship is part of a plan to qualify for a possible scholarship for her Masters, where she plans to major in Origin Integration law.
It’s a lot of commitments to juggle, but Vivian’s number one priority is her job at St Jude’s, a position she wants to hold for the next 10 years.
“I love what I do and I’m so lucky to have the opportunities I have. I’ve already learnt so much in my time with Beyond St Jude’s, especially from Angela (Bailey, BSJ manager),” she said.
This worldly woman, who has previously studied in Russia, is now venturing to North America to cement our school’s upcoming opportunities with the MasterCard Foundation Scholars Program at African Leadership Academy.
St Jude’s has qualified as a recruiting partner for the prestigious program, which means our graduates may be eligible for their international scholarships.
Not only do these scholarships open our students to a world of possibilities, the program is in line with St Jude’s mission of creating future leaders of Tanzania by ensuring all scholarship recipients return to Africa after finishing their higher education.
In recent months we have been busy making important changes to our sponsorship program that make the journey even smoother for supporters of our school.
The streamlined sponsorship programs allow sponsors to remain on the journey with their sponsored student without experiencing a price change when their sponsored student reaches boarding.
Under the new sponsorship program there are now just three levels of student sponsorship: sole sponsor, co-sponsor and shared sponsor.
The previous structure had four levels, with a price change reflecting a student’s move to boarding.
School Founder Gemma Sisia said the change made it easier for supporters to stay on the journey with their sponsored student.
She said the prices reflected the balance between covering the cost of a student’s St Jude’s scholarship at a price sponsors from around the world can afford.
“Sponsors are the backbone of everything we achieve at St Jude’s,” Gemma said.
“When I think about how we’ve been able to come so far - achieving milestones we couldn’t have imagined when we opened our school with just three students 14 years ago - I only have one explanation: our sponsors.”
“When our students are in need of new facilities, our sponsors answer the call. When we find promising students who need free education, our sponsors answer the call.”
“We have been able to continue fulfilling our mission through extraordinarily tough economic times, because our sponsors continue to support our students through thick and thin.”
Want to help us fight poverty through education? Why not sponsor a student today!
