Give 420 Girls in Tanzania Their Own School

“Once you educate a girl, you educate the society.” This is the guiding belief of Florencia, the Head Teacher at Milembe Secondary School. As the only one of five sisters who went to school, Florencia is an exemplary role model for young girls who are striving to complete their education. After struggling to pay the school fees through Form 6, she did so well in school she was invited to attend the University of Dar es Salaam. Florencia now proudly serves the families and children of Milembe.

With her dedication to educating children Florencia’s leadership at Milembe School inspires us! She laughed as she said “Once you are a teacher, you are like a parent with a lot of children. I feel good once they have excelled in their learning—I feel proud of them.” She has helped so many students at the school including one girl whose parents wanted to marry her off at age 13. The girl ran away from home and found Florencia who invited her to come study at Milembe School. Florencia helped with the family reconciliation and made it possible to enroll the girl who is now in Form Three (the equivalent of the 10^th grade). Because of her deep belief in the importance of education, Florencia finds solutions where others might not.

In rural areas like Iteja village where many teachers and students have lengthy commutes on foot or bike, teacher housing is a necessity. Florencia like the other Milembe teachers walks miles on a dusty path to get to school. But now, thanks to your help and a generous grant from the US Embassy in Dar es Salaam, we have just completed the first teacher’s house at Milembe Secondary School and Florencia and her family will now have housing at the school campus! We hope this will be the first of many houses built to enable teachers to live at the rural school site. 

Florencia views this house as a great step in making the school a full campus. “It’s exciting to have a beautiful new house to move into. I feel like this gives us a refreshing new outlook. With a teacher living at the site, it provides a symbol of the strength of the school.” This first teacher’s house at Milembe is also a necessary step as Africa Schoolhouse gets ready to build a girl’s dormitory. Having a teacher at the site is essential to prepare the campus for the first group of girls to have safe living space.

Thanks to your help, Florencia will now spend less time on the road to and from school and will have more time to offer guidance and academic support to students. Africa Schoolhouse is as dedicated to serving children as teachers like Florencia, who inspire us all! Thank you for all you have done to make this house a reality for Florencia and the children at Milembe School! We can’t wait to celebrate with you when we break ground for the first dormitory!

Links:

• Visit our Africa Schoolhouse website