Education Tanzania, United Republic of Project #45290

Build a school for 100 Maasai children in Tanzania

by Smart Villages Foundation

Build a school for 100 Maasai children in Tanzania

Project Report | Jan 4, 2023
Kiruru School making leaps and bounds!

By Iona Smith | Impact and Outreach Officer

School building complete & ready for classes.

Hi everyone!

We have made a huge amount of progress since the last quarterly report- give our report a read to find out more...

There have been 30 students enrolled for the class starting in January 2023, so the school will have a total of 81 students next year. They managed to raise funds in the community to start the foundation of the second classroom (you can see in the image attached).

In the meantime, the plan is to have two classes of students sharing the classroom in shifts when the school reopens in January. Class 1 will start from 8am until 12noon and Class 2 will use the classroom afterwards until 4pm. Next up, we plan to finish the teachers’ house, complete the construction of the second classroom and buy 25 desks for the first classroom.

Thanks to some VERY generous donations from you in the last months, we can help the community achieve these next targets! We look forward to updating you in three months with what has been achieved in our next reports.

Thank you again for supporting this very worthwhile project. As ever, sharing this project report on your social media channels and across your personal network will be hugely beneficial to the publicity of this project, which we hope will result in some more donations, and even more resources being given to the school. Thank you again to all who have donated so far.

All the best,

Iona & the SVRG Team

Classroom ready for pupils

Foundations for the new classroom

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Jan 24, 2022
Kiruru update

By Bernie Jones | Project leader

The new school building so far

Hello Friends,

We have some good and some bad news from Kiruru in Tanzania for you this time. The positive news is that progress on the school is continuing. We've been able to add your generous donations over the last quarter to funds that the village has contribributed themselves. And progress is being made on the new school building - you can see some of the pictures below.

The 'old' pre-primary school hut has also been fully repaired after the storm last year, and is once again in full swing. The village is keen to finish off the school building, connect it to the new solar power system they have in the village, and then the building can start to be used.

The bad news that we warned you about is that this year, the rains have failed so far. There is supposed to be a 'small' rainy season in November and December, that would usually allow the community to grow a crop of vegetables and beans for the year ahead. Last year you'll remember there was too much rain, and crops were washed away. This year, other than two or three days, there has been no rain since June. The ground is rock hard, and it is impossible to grow anything. Even the grass has died, which means that the cattle upon which the Maasai also traditionally rely have had little or nothing to eat - the are news reports of thousands of cattle dying across the region. We don't know if it is climate change, but it is noteworthy that since we started working in this region 3 years ago, there has not been a single "normal" set of rains!

Despite the lack of crops (and therefore money) the community is committed to completing the primary school, and continue to contribute what they can themselves. Your generous donations help us support them in their ongoing work. As ever, if you would like to share the project link with friends and family, we and the community of the small sub-village of Kiruru in Northern Tanzania would be extremely grateful! Don't forget that, for technical reasons, the project link above was retired, and our ongoing project for this school can be found at this link: Build a school for 100 Maasai children in Tanzania.Thank you in advance!

We look forward to sharing more updates with you soon!

Bernie

Dry landscape in Kiruru

The school office/pre-primary classroom to be...

Progress on what will be the main classroom

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Feb 1, 2021
Stormy times in Simanjiro - Kiruru School update

By Bernie Jones | Project leader

Kiruru pre-Primary school lost its roof in a storm

Dear Friends,

Despite COVID-related international travel problems, we have just been out in Tanzania, and in particular catching up with the community of Kiruru. The General Election in October, and its aftermath, disrupted everyone's lives a little bit, and sadly it looks as though - although Tanzania has had very low incidence of COVID since June - the disease is now making a comeback, with several hospitals in the capital, Dar es Salaam, allegedly full with people suffering from COVID.

Your generous donations last year have been used by the community to have the metal windows made for the new school - there's a photo here of them being stored in the corner of the village church, for safety.

But the really sad news we have to report is that in the storms at the end of the short rainy season in December, the roof of the pre-school blew off, and has been damaged beyond easy repair. Since then, Nemburis the volunteer teacher, not to be put off her personal mission of helping the children of the community, has been teaching them under a tree each day.

But this does mean the village is particularly keen to finish off the main structure of the new primary school (and the roof in particular) so that the pre-Primary school can be taught there in the meantime.

Your generous donations over the last 3 months have been added to funds collected in the community (and a surprise donation to the village from a Tanzanian benefactor, of 1 million Tanzanian shillings - a little over $400) to help the village achieve at least water-tightness for the school building, so that the pre-primary pupils have somewhere safe and secure to be taught when the long rainy season starts next month.

You may recall that we had to move the fundraising for this cause to a separate project on the GlobalGiving site. If you are able to share our ongoing fundraising page for the school (https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/build-a-school-for-100-maasai-children-in-tanzania/) with your friends and family, the people and children of Kiruru will be very pleased.

Many thanks in the meantime, and we hope you and loved ones all stay safe and healthy.

Best regards

Bernie

Under this tree - where children are learning now!

Pieces of the damaged roof

New primary school building in background

Open to the sky - pre-primary school post-storm

Blackboard and new school windows stored in church

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