Elerai Secondary School

This morning we went to Elerai Secondary School, where four of the Sakina Scholars attend.

I talked to the assistant headmaster for almost 2 hours and he patiently answered all of my questions. Some basic observations before I give the full school profile: big class size, growing, in need of textbooks, teachers, and other teaching resources, very new.

Key Contacts
Headmistress: C.P. Kawala
Asst. Headmaster: Peter Bejumora

Quick Facts
Founded: May 2006
No. of Students (2009): 1439
No. of Teachers (2009): 45
No. of Classrooms (2009): 26
Class size: 60-63 students
Days of School: 194
Uniforms: Navy blue pants or skirt and dark green sweater
School year: Begins early January, ends early December
Laboratory: No
Library: No
Computer Lab: No
Electricity: Yes

Daily Schedule
7:30 First Bell
7:30-7:40 Attendance
7:45 Morning Assembly
8:00-11:20 Classes
11:20-11:50 Midbreak
11:50-2:30 Classes
2:30-3:00 General Cleanness
3:15 Departure
3:00-4:30 Club meetings every Wednesday


Student Services
Health: First aid kit and periodic health seminars by medical professionals
Field Trip: Organize student-financed safari for form II students

History
The idea for Elerai Secondary School originally came from members of the community, who took the idea to the village leaders.
The issue was that Burka Primary School children had nowhere to go to secondary school because it was too expensive to send the children to the nearest secondary school, which was so far away they would have had to pay for room and board. The leaders met and agreed to start construction on a new school.
In 2005, construction started on six rooms and in May 2006, it became a government registered school, starting with just 200 students and 4 teachers. The construction of the school reduced the number of street children because families who previously couldn't afford boarding school could now send their children to secondary school.
By August of 2006, there were 10 teachers. In January 2007, there were a total of 10 rooms, 4 of which were built by the community, 20 teachers, and 693 students. By 2008, there were 35 teachers, 1078 students, and 17 rooms, 3 of which were financed by the Ministry of Education.

Future Plans
Elerai School is starting to outgrow its space. The school’s goals are to expand, buy more textbooks for the students, create a place for vocational training, open a laboratory, and establish a space for a library. It would also like to add form V and VI, but the government will choose which one of the 14 municipal schools in Elerai will teach form V and VI. The law mandates there must be one school in every municipal area with form V and VI, but there isn’t one yet in the town of Elerai.

Clubs
Subject clubs (English, Math, etc)
Scouts (co-ed)
Choir
Health Club
Debate Club
Club against Corruption

Classes
Forms I and II take 9 subjects:
• English
• Kiswahili
• Math
• Geography
• Civics
• Biology
• Chemistry
• Physics
• History
Forms III and IV must take at least 7 subjects (6 of which are mandatory) and can take up to 11:
• English (Mandatory)
• Kiswahili (Mandatory)
• Math (Mandatory)
• Geography (Mandatory)
• Civics (Mandatory)
• Biology (Mandatory)
• Chemistry (Elective)
• Physics (Elective)
• History (Elective)
• Commerce (Elective)
• Bookkeeping (Elective)

Vocab word of the day:
Mahindi - corn

Compassion Orphanage

Yesterday I went to Compassion Orphanage, a place at which the Maturo family used to volunteer and where we will conduct part of the health assessment. I met with Pastor Urio, a social worker named Joyce, and the Compassion coordinator, Mr. Mollel.

Compassion is a really neat place. They don’t receive any government money and depend on outside donors, internationally and domestically. About 300 kids attend Compassion, most of whom aren’t orphans, but who come from poor family situations. Some have sponsors from other countries as well. I got a tour of the compound, which consists of a big conference hall and offices as well as some “classrooms” and a kitchen. The classrooms are currently a converted chicken coop (see picture above) and a building in progress. The kids sang a song for me and asked me questions. On Saturdays they have little classes about different topics. They used to have fun things like art, etc., but they ran out of funding and now just have bible study and miscellaneous classroom topics. We will come back in a few weeks to teach about health.

In terms of services, they provide health services. They have a first aid kid on site and if the child gets very sick, they send the child to the hospital and pay for the medicine. They also have health seminars on prevention, hygiene, etc. In addition, they provide a healthy meal. Today, some of the parents of the Compassion children were making a healthy meal (greens, meat, etc) and are educated on how to prepare good food for their children. They also provide counseling to the parents about health and how to make the home environment better. They give the families little tasks to do that help Compassion but also give them some work (separating coal, etc).

I asked Joyce what she does as a social worker and she said she does three main things: 1) They do health evaluations which involves checking the children’s eyes, nose, etc. and assess their health situation to see if it’s changed since the last check up. They administer any care or send them to the hospital if necessary. 2) They create education reports for each child and mark down their class standing and grades. These reports are also sent to sponsors as an update. 3) Finally, she corresponds with overseas sponsors from countries such as the U.S., Korea, Greece, etc. They have the children write letters to their sponsors three times a year; at Christmas, Easter, and during school holidays. Each student has had the same sponsor the whole time so there is some continuity for the donor and student. They also send a picture of the student.

I met with the scholars again today! I am starting to be able to connect with them more between my Swahili and their English (which is actually pretty good). They taught me some more vocab words and tested me on the animals, which I didn’t remember very well. I asked them to tell me more about Masai (3 or 4 of them are part Masai), what they do around the house, what they like to cook, what they want to be, etc. We could start our own village – William wants to be an engineer, Elias an animal doctor, Omari a leader, Rehema a lawyer, and so on. We did a little ceremony where everyone got a certificate congratulating them for finishing their first year of secondary school and took some pictures. We also gave them the photo release form that Emanueli and Irene translated into Swahili. I will meet them on Wednesday for them to give us back the form and a letter (in English and Swahili) describing their year! Next Sunday we are meeting them at the internet café to give them email addresses, which they all looked EXTREMELY excited for. None of them have really used a computer, so it will be great for them to learn initially and then to have the laptops at the Maturo’s house for reinforcement.



Here is a picture of Emanueli, Irene, and Gladys working on my laptop together to translate the photo release form!



Picture of the scholars with their certificates!!! We took some pictures with the three coordinators (me, Emanueli, and Irene), but this was the only picture in which I could get them all to smile because I would say random things in Swahili to make them laugh. Haha.

Front row (left to right): Damian, Manase, Rehema, Eva, William
Second row (left to right): Felister, Dominic, Elias, Iddy, Omari, Patric

Vocab word of the day:
Ongeza! – more! (which Mama tells me every time I finish my food)

Getting ready for a busy week!

I taught Emanueli and Irene more about the laptops and showed them how to navigate around. I also showed them how to navigate a financial spreadsheet and put Emanueli in charge of the budget for the rest of the summer. We have been practicing how to fill out Excel spreadsheets and they are getting pretty good at it. While I filled out participant observer forms (which will help us document observations about different places in the community), Emanueli and Irene worked together on their laptop to finish translating and refining the scholarship application. Afterwards, we worked together and brainstormed interview questions and selection criteria. We are making some great headway with the Sakina scholars program!

Typical meal: ugali (tasteless white corn and flour mixture that has the consistency of grainy bread), green bean, potato and carrot stew, rice, beans (with coconut sauce yum!), cabbage, ginger chai, bananas. Everything is so delicious!

We are visiting 5 out of the 7 secondary schools that the Sakina Scholars attend, so stay tuned all week for school profiles! I’ll probably post into the weekend to complete all of the profiles.

Vocab word of the day:
Napenda – I like

Tanzanian Education System

Today was a very busy day, so I'll recap today's events (and hopefully a picture!) in tomorrow's post. But, since I’ll be working with the Sakina Scholars program more closely over the next couple weeks, it may be interesting for you to understand the education system here:

The structure of the Tanzanian education system consists of three levels of education:
• First Level: First level education consists of 7 years of primary school (elementary school). This level may sometimes also consist of one or two years of pre-primary school (pre-school).
• Second Level: Second level education, or secondary school consists of 4 years of junior secondary school (ordinary level school Form I-Form IV) and 2 years of senior secondary school (advanced level school Form V-Form VI).
• Third Level: Third level education consists of education and programs offered by separate, higher education institutions. Students complete at least 3 years of tertiary education (university).

The Tanzanian educational system includes a series of exams, the first taken in Form IV. The Certificate of Secondary Education Exam or the Ordinary Level (O-level) exams are held in November; the results are released in March of the following year. Students are tested in nine different subjects. The Sakina scholars take 12 subjects and choose which 9 they want to take. The subjects they take are:
• English
• Kiswahili
• History
• Geography
• Civics
• Mathematics
• Physics
• Chemistry
• Biology
• Commerce
• Book Keeping
• Economics

The Certificate of Secondary Education is awarded in four divisions to candidates who fulfill the state requirements.
• Division One: awarded to candidates who (1) pass in at least seven subjects, which must include at least one subject in civics, Kiswahili, foreign languages, social sciences or technology, mathematics, natural sciences, commercial studies or home economics, (2) pass with grades of A- C in at least four subjects and, (3) reach a collective score of no more than 17 points in the candidate's seven best subjects.
• Division Two: awarded to candidates who (1) pass in at least seven subjects, which must include at least one subject as listed above, (2) pass with grades of A-C in at least four subjects and, (3) reach a collective score of no more than 21 points in the best seven subjects.
• Division Three and Division Four: descending from the above standards.

Candidates are eligible to enter the fifth year of secondary school if they pass in at least five subjects with grades of A-C on the O-Level exams. After the final year of secondary school - the thirteenth year - students can take the Advanced Certificate Examination (A-level) exams in nine subjects, including General Studies, which is recognized all over the world. The A-Levels are taken in May, and results come out in October, also awarded in four divisions. Division 1 and some Division 2 students are eligible for loans and government scholarships to go to university, but they are very competitive.

Vocab word of the day:
gari - car
pikipiki - motorcycle

Laptops and Translation

Emanueli and I went into town and created Sustain Foundation’s own P.O. Box #13469. It’s definitely a great first step.

I started training Emanueli and Irene on the laptops, which were donated to Sustain Foundation and spruced up with open source Ubuntu and Open Office. There are also some educational programs on them for the scholars to use, including a typing program! I showed them how to use the laptops and some databases I made for storing information about finances and the Sakina Scholars program. We also talked about what kinds of documents we will need for the Sakina Scholar program going forward, such as an application and photo release form.

We started translating a scholar application I had made and before we knew it, the whole family was in the room pitching in. After we practice a little more, I hope they will type up a blog posting for us!

We are in the process of hiring a translator to translate all of the health assessment documents and will have them finished in the next two weeks so we can get started on the health assessment of Sakina!

The scholars are coming over again tomorrow and I can’t wait! We are giving them certificates of achievement to congratulate them for finishing their first year of secondary school (Form I). We filled out the certificates and filled in their name and school name. We are also giving them a photo release form for their parent\guardian to sign so that Sustain Foundation has official permission to use their pictures in promotional publications. Emanueli and Irene spent time after dinner translating a release form that I already had created.

During dinner, we watched the Dr. Dolittle vhs I brought for the family, which Mama has already watched twice! Haha.

Vocab word of the day:
Dada – sister
Kaka – brother

Sakina Scholars and Elerai Village Leaders

Recap from yesterday: I met with Emanueli and Irene to go over some of the plans for the summer. I gave them their business cards, which they were pretty excited about. They didn’t really know how to use them so I explained situations in which we should and should not use the business cards. I told them that we will have chances to practice.

I also met with all of the Sakina Scholars! It was so great to finally meet them. Many of them were pretty shy, so I asked them lots of questions and used my limited Kiswahili, which made them laugh. They have different levels of English, but they took turns teaching me Kiswahili. One boy, Elias, taught me different animal names and said that he is going to give me a test the next time we meet. They range in age from 14 to 16. Most of them said their favorite food is ugali, which is a white, rice based type of flavorless bread that you eat with stew and vegetables. In terms of music, they all like hip-hop, reggae, and bongo flavor. Here is a picture of them with Emanueli and Irene standing behind them. Front (from left to right): Back (left to right): Omar, Falista, Manasi, Raima, Eva, Patrick, Elias, Iddi, William, Damian, Dominic

I am excited to hear about the Carrboro\Sakina connection where students in Carrboro will write letters to our Sakina Scholars here! I think that will be really neat.

Emanueli was wearing his Fleet Feet shirt!

Today, Baba, Emanueli, and Irene took me to the Elerai office. Elerai is the area in which I live and Sakina is located within Elerai. Within Sakina, there are many streets on which many people live. The Maturo household is located on Kabida ya Maziwa.

I wanted to meet some key stakeholders in the community so that they were aware of what we would be doing over the next two months. They will also be an integral part in the health assessment of the community. Baba knows everyone, so he introduced me. I met the ward executive officer and the village chairman. They both were really nice and told me they would help in any way possible with Sustain Foundation’s work this summer. The village government breakdown is as follows: chancellor (elected), ward executive officer (works with chancellor but is appt by govt), village chairman (elected), village executive officer (works with village chairman but is appt by govt), street chairman (elected), Ten sill leader (elected and is in charge of a small group of households).

Then we went took the daladala, which are small vans that serve as the bus system, into town. We first stopped at the Arusha Municipal Center and met with some officials who explained the NGO registration process. It’s a little complicated and may take a little while to become officially registered, so it’s a good thing the village leaders are supportive.

It was fun to help Emanueli and Irene start using their business cards at every office we visited!

Vocab word of the day:
Picha - picture

Hello Sakina!

Hello! I have made it safe and sound to Sakina, where I will spend two months working with Irene and Emanueli Maturo. Right now I am spending a day or two getting oriented to the village and preparing our plan of attack.

SAKINA: I’m staying in a small village within Sakina called Maziwa (which means milk in Kiswahili). I got a tour of the house and my room, which is very nice! The restroom (which is basically a nice outhouse) and washroom (where I was with a bucket) are outside by the cowshed. They have a very big compound and grow their own banana trees!

Maturo family: There is Baba and Mama – Baba speaks very good English and he was a math teacher in primary school and then a program officer for primary schools at the Ministry of Education. He is Masai, but the last person in his family to live in a Masai boma (village) was his grandfather. Mama is Chagga (the tribe from Mt. Kilimanjaro) and she speaks very limited English; however, she is so nice and welcoming! The kids are Winston, Irene, Gladys, Emanueli, Stephen, and Clemens. Winston is the oldest and he used to be a shopkeeper for a tourist office, but now lives at home and also takes English classes. Irene and Gladys sometimes decorate and cater weddings to earn extra money. Gladys teaches primary school and is taking classes to resit the Form IV exam so she can get a certificate, which will allow her to earn more money. Emanueli finished through form IV and enjoys painting and drawing. He was an art teacher. Stephen is a chef at a restaurant that makes American type food and he is going to cook for the family next week. Clemens is in Form IV and will be taking his national exam in October. He really likes the sciences.

ARUSHA: Yesterday, Emanueli took me into the city of Arusha, which is surrounded by mountains. It is winter here and is in the 70’s. After spending a month in Zanzibar where it was consistently in the 90’s, this is a refreshing change of pace. The city reminds me a little of the western USA landscape and is the base for many tourist safaris.

We went to the Museum of Natural History, which is located in the old German Boma from when Germany colonized TZ. Behind the museum is Mt. Meru, which takes about 3-5 days to climb. It was colonized in 1885 and then peacefully taken over by the British in 1918 after Germany lost the First World War. Some good things: Germany built lots of infrastructure that still stands today, which many Tanzanians agree still benefits TZ. They also encouraged the use of Kiswahili in government. Some bad things: They mistreated the Tanzanians, especially women and used corporal punishment. They would severely beat people for small misdemeanors.

We also went to the UN Tribunal for Genocide in Rwanda (which occurred in 1994) and sat in on a court proceeding. The tribunal will close this year because they will soon finish will all of the court proceedings.

Today, I will be meeting all of the Sakina Scholars from Burka Secondary School and will post updates and hopefully pictures later this week.

Learn Kiswahili:
skuli - school