Providing Inclusive Education in Tanzania

The children are back at school following a month-long holiday- it's the start of a new school year and new adventures await. Some of our students are adapting to the start of secondary education. It means new friends, new subjects, and new challenges. 

Many of the older students are now awaiting their school selections following their final exams and graduation from secondary school! These students scored within the top percentile of their classes- a truly amazing achievement given everything they've been through. Later this year, the government will offer spots for colleges and other higher education programs. These spots are offered based on exam scores- and our children are truly set up for success thanks to the hard work of our staff. 

eptember means back to school!
After a summer full of adventure, the Amani children are ready for the new school year. The older
students have their national exam taking place this October and November, which will allow them to
receive government sponsorships to universities and colleges. This means taking extra classes to ensure
that they are prepared. We know that this hard work will pay off, and we wish them the best of luck! 
In addition to their studies, the children have enjoyed another trip to the waterfalls! During this trip, the
children rode bicycles, tuk-tuks, and trekked a rocky path. There was no shortage of fun on the excursion,
which can be clearly seen when looking at the smiles on their faces. 

Bringing the children into nature teaches them many valuable lessons, one of which is maintaining a healthy school-life balance. There is no question that being a student today can be stressful, and the upcoming exam for the older students may be especially daunting. However, the children can learn that stress can be mitigated with good friends, exercise, and fun! 
Our goal is to prepare these children for happy and successful lives ahead. By providing them with a
healthy balance of academic support and enriching activities, we are teaching the children valuable
lessons that can be applied throughout their lifetimes. 

Each month we like to highlight the success of one of our students. Ludi is a charming and clever teen. She lost both of her parents at the young age of nine months old. She was four years old when she was brought to Amani Children's Home.

Today, she’s thriving. In her free time, she likes to play netball and football. She tells us that when she grows up she would like to become a pharmacist. She’d be the first woman in her family to go into medicine.

Ludi is currently getting her secondary education at St Dorcas School and would like to continue with her studies until she reaches her goal. She believes educating a girl is educating the community. Her dream is to become an independent and educated woman who can help other children who are in need as she was.

Note: We never share full names or other personal information. First names or pseudonyms are used per our policy. We feature the same kids you may have met, but may they appear in publications under different names to protect their privacy.

From our Tanzanian Team:

Our children are currently in the early stages of the 2022 academic year, so it is difficult to give a good assessment, especially in this early stage.

For the exam classes, those who are in secondary and primary schools have started preparing for the exams that they will do later this year. 

These preparations include having extra hours in class than other non-exams students, doing examinations every week, and doing a lot of night classes.

For now, the center has 26 children who are in high school, 10 of them are expected to sit for the exam later this year, and 8 students will take the Ordinary level graduation exam, for those who will pass will be eligible to go to Advance Level in secondary education. this is two years a student must undertake before joining the university and the other 2 students will take the cross-examination, which is very important at this stage before advancing to a higher level of ordinary level in secondary education.

And for the primary students, seven (7) students will also be expected to sit for the exam in November this year, this exam will mark the end of the primary education level, those who will pass this exam will be joining secondary education in 2023.

And four more students will take a fourth-grade exam that will enable them to proceed with the second stage of primary education.

For our Tanzanian Team: On September 8th and 9th standard seven students in Tanzania sat for the final exam, this year Amani had 12 children who were candidates, this is the first time to have this big number of children sat for the standard seven exams in a year.

That exam marks the end of seven years of primary education which is a result of many sleepless nights, a lot of dedication, and many hours in the classroom. We are sure our children will perform well in this exam not only because they spent a lot of time studying but their previous results (regional exam) give us a good projection that they will perform very well. In that regional exam, all of our children got A.