We urge all ADS clients to visit the Arusha school campus for a quick tour, say hi to the children and learn how this amazing operation is providing free education to Tanzania’s brightest kids. This quick tour can be done either before or after your safari. Please contact your safari consultant if you are interested.

ADS as Proud Sponsor

The School of St Jude and Africa Dream Safaris are working together to help impoverished children in Tanzania to receive a free, high-quality education, while strengthening ADS’ humanitarian involvement in the East African community. Our monthly donation will buy 2,000 hot, nutritious meals per month for the students. Tanzania is a developing country where one-third of its population lives below the poverty line, on less than $1.25 per day. A majority of children in Tanzanian schools do not receive lunch or any food, so they cannot focus on learning when they’re hungry. St Jude’s provides daily meals for students, as well as breakfast and dinner for the over 1,100 students who live in their boarding houses. All produce is sourced from the local community.

ADS proudly sponsors the School of St. Jude – a charity funded school in Tanzania that provides a free, high-quality primary and secondary education to over 1,600 of the poorest, brightest children of the Arusha region. Each month we receive an update on St. Jude’s progress. This month, two teachers reflect on how the school has impacted their lives…

When a teacher receives a job at St Jude’s it has a big impact on their life. At St Jude’s teachers are provided with stable employment, amazing resources and a competitive salary. On top of that they receive health insurance, daily nutritious meals and transport to and from work.

All teachers are supported through ongoing professional development through a teacher mentor program. International teacher mentors volunteer their time to help local teachers learn educational techniques from all over the world and ensure they can perfect their English.

With so many extremely under resourced schools in Tanzania and with a high unemployment rate, all of our teachers are aware of the positive impact their job has on their overall life. A stable job also means that all of our teachers’ families benefit too. “Many Tanzanian people are poor. There are some families who take their kids to local primary school, they can’t afford it. The salary helped not only me but also my family. I can help my parents and some children also needed my help. There are children out there who sometimes don’t have money to buy their school uniforms or books, I can’t help them that much but I can afford to buy one school uniform. If I was not working here, if I am not working here, it means I could not afford to pay bills,” says Amina, Maths Teacher, Lower Primary.

Listen to our teachers talk about how working at St Jude’s has impacted on their lives:

Teachers play such a vital role in turning our students into future leaders. They do an amazing job working hard to create brilliant minds and successful, well-rounded adults.

“I think that with the education that they have received at St Jude’s, they’re going to stand out in the crowd because they’ve got something that’s different from other children. So, I think by getting the education here it’s going to help the whole community. Not only Arusha, but all over Tanzania,” says Julieth, a St Jude’s teacher. This is just another part of the ripple effect caused by educating one of the poorest and brightest students in the Arusha region. Please consider starting your own ripple today by sponsoring a student or teacher:

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The School of St Jude and Africa Dream Safaris are working together to help impoverished children in Tanzania to receive a free, high-quality education, while strengthening ADS’ humanitarian involvement in the East African community. Our monthly donation will buy 2,000 hot, nutritious meals per month for the students. Tanzania is a developing country where one-third of its population lives below the poverty line, on less than $1.25 per day. A majority of children in Tanzanian schools do not receive lunch or any food, so they cannot focus on learning when they’re hungry. St Jude’s provides daily meals for students, as well as breakfast and dinner for the over 1,100 students who live in their boarding houses. All produce is sourced from the local community.

Below is the story about a student named Eva from the School of St Jude. (Provided by SSJ)

Six years ago, young Eva’s face beamed from the cover of the autobiography of our school founder Gemma Sisia, titled ‘St Jude’s.’ Eva was a young girl who was still realizing her dreams. She epitomized the happy, bright eyed child at St Jude’s who is overjoyed about getting a free, high quality education. Now she has grown and is developing into a well-adjusted young adult. She is in Form 1 and has big aspirations, with a world of possibilities in front of her. This is her story.

Eva started at St Jude’s in 2006, when the school was just four years old and we had just over 600 students and around 115 staff. Eva’s family includes her father, John, mother, Penina and younger brothers Richard and Benjamin. They live in a two-room brick home and like many other Tanzanian dwellings, the home has no plumbing (water is collected from a neighborhood tap for a small monthly fee) and meals are prepared over a charcoal or basic kerosene-fueled stove.

To support the family, Eva’s father finds work where he can as a carpenter and a mason. Her mother works at their home as a tailor. They are big supporters of Eva’s education and encourage her to continue learning in the hope that one day she will have qualifications and a successful career so she can break the cycle of poverty for herself, help them and her community.

Eva showed promise as a capable student at a young age. As a child, she would often ask her parents to send her to a school which would enable her to learn English. “I wanted to learn English because I knew in this world of today that I needed it and I strived to get a high quality education as I wanted to have a bright future,” she said.

She grew up playing with her younger brother and their games would regularly revolve around learning. “There was one game where we liked to draw and the first one to finish was the winner. The aim of it was that you drew things, like an egg and you also wrote the name of it in English. So, I always liked to play games where I could learn new words.”
Before St Jude’s, Eva attended a government school where nearly all of her subjects were in Swahili. It was a limited learning environment where Eva felt she was not able to reach her full potential. She remembers hearing about St Jude’s at her old school and then soon applied. It was a turning point in her life.

After passing the relevant checks, she was accepted and began a new chapter of her life. “When I found out I was going to St Jude’s, I thought it was amazing and I was very happy. It meant a lot to me,” said Eva. Since then she has fulfilled a number of milestones. She successfully completed her seven years of primary schooling, has begun high school and has impressively scored A’s in almost all of her subjects. She also boards at the school’s Smith campus which is preparing her to be a strong, independent individual.

Eva’s life has been transformed because of her education. She has sponsors in Australia and is acutely aware that their support has enabled her to have clean uniforms, a place to board, fresh, nutritional food, committed teachers and access to state-of-the-art ICT laboratories and well-stocked libraries.

Research supports the assertion that sponsorship can make a huge difference in a child’s life. Bruce Wydick, an economist from the University of San Francisco carried out a study in six countries over three continents, including in Uganda and Kenya. He and his team studied more than 10-thousand individuals who had been sponsored in the 1980s. The overall result was that student sponsorship works and that 50 to 80 per cent are more likely to complete a university education.

“By sponsoring a child at St Jude’s you will change the life of that child, their family, their community and contribute to changing their country. The evidence says it works, the economics says it works and if you visit the school you can see for yourself that it works. What better way is there of using your money?” said St Jude’s School Director John Ford.
Eva, the little girl that once shyly took her first steps through the St Jude’s gates seven years ago, has grown into a happy, confident young adult. She is like any other teenager who enjoys spending time with her friends and playing card games. In a few years, Eva plans to head to university to study engineering and work in Tanzania. Like the young girl on the cover of St Jude’s, she is optimistic, loving life, has the world at her feet and ready to embrace it.

The School of St Jude started in 2002 with just three students in the Moshono area of Arusha, Northern Tanzania. How, then, did it grow to become one of Africa’s best and largest educational institutions of its kind, providing a free quality education to the poorest children in the region?

Any way you look at it, parent involvement from the get-go is part of the answer.
Most of St Jude’s parents have had limited education and some can feel uncomfortable in a school environment. But that never kept them from recognizing the value of a good education.

Meet Catherine, mother of St Jude’s student Augustino, who is in Standard 2, the equivalent of second grade in the U.S. They rent one room in a crowded compound with other families. The residents share a toilet, wash room and water tap. The women and children collect water for cooking, drinking, washing and cleaning from the nearby tap, for a small per-bucket fee. There’s no internal plumbing or electricity.

She and her husband are currently raising five children, four of their own and one child by a cousin of hers. Catherine’s husband farms his plot of land in Babati, a three-hour journey from Arusha. That is the family’s main source of income. He grows maize and beans, and is usually away for days in a row during harvesting season. Catherine complements the family’s income by cooking a fish and peanut dish to sell in town. Having enough food for her children and herself while their father is away keeps her awake at night. She must come up with a plan each day for where her family’s next meal will come from.

Despite all the adversities, Catherine makes sure Augustino is fed and washed each morning when the St Jude’s bus comes around to pick him up for school. Every afternoon she clears a space in the house to make sure he does his homework. As Augustino progresses along his education, he will be in a position to help his siblings in their studies.

He spends most of his day at St Jude’s. Classes start at 8:30 am, and the bus takes him home at 3 pm. He has regular Tanzanian elementary school classes, such as reading, writing and math, plus an enhanced curriculum including arts, computers and sports.

He also has a number of extra-curricular activities and breaks between classes, a time when he can socialize with his friends, play on the school’s grounds and enjoy life.

Catherine considers herself lucky. She feels her family has been blessed because one of her children attends The School of St Jude, where he not only eats two meals every day, but gets a better education than many children attending private schools in the region.

“I’ve seen a lot of difference since Augustino started studying at St Jude’s,” says Catherine. “He’s smarter, more polite and hardworking.”

Good job, Catherine! Your son is thriving at St Jude’s thanks also to your support and encouragement.