2019 Projects
In the summer of 2018, community members, teachers and local officials met to discuss the challenges facing Gijega Primary School. Additional classrooms for the severely overcrowded school emerged as the top priority. Overcrowding at the school had gotten so severe that the kindergarteners were meeting outdoors in an open field next to the school. The community proposed a collaborative effort to build a new classroom building. The community also renewed the request for assistance in completing the partially constructed head teacher’s house at Gijega primary School. Finally, the community and the teachers requested loans to help the newly founded savings groups get off the ground.
As a result of ongoing discussions with community leaders, the Rafiki Village Project made the decision to shift its focus from working primarily with Gijega Primary School and the surrounding village of Gishaj to thinking of the whole of Dumbeta Ward as our partner community. This change in approach better serves the goals of community cohesion and integration. In addition to Gijega Primary School, Dumbeta Ward has three other primary schools and a secondary school. The Rafiki Village project is now providing a quarterly stipend to each of these schools to help with educational materials and supplies. In the coming years we will be working to improve education, health and economic prosperity throughout Dumbeta Ward.
As a result of ongoing discussions with community leaders, the Rafiki Village Project made the decision to shift its focus from working primarily with Gijega Primary School and the surrounding village of Gishaj to thinking of the whole of Dumbeta Ward as our partner community. This change in approach better serves the goals of community cohesion and integration. In addition to Gijega Primary School, Dumbeta Ward has three other primary schools and a secondary school. The Rafiki Village project is now providing a quarterly stipend to each of these schools to help with educational materials and supplies. In the coming years we will be working to improve education, health and economic prosperity throughout Dumbeta Ward.
Gijega Primary School Classroom
Construction
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In 2018 teachers, community leaders and parents identified Gijega Primary School’s greatest challenge as the lack of classroom space. With over 500 students crowded into only seven classrooms, class size often exceeded sixty students per class. Overcrowding resulted in the kindergarteners not having a classroom and forcing them to meet outdoors. The community agreed to supply the bricks and much of the labor to build new classrooms if the Rafiki Village Project supplied the funding for the project. The new classroom building contains two classrooms and a badly needed school office.
STATUS: COMPLETED NOVEMBER 2019 COST: $23,401 |
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Gijega Primary School Head Teacher’s HouseIn Tanzania, rural public schools often supply onsite housing for teachers at little or no cost. Housing helps supplement low teacher salaries. In addition, schools usually provide plots of land where teachers can raise crops to supplement their income. It is difficult to recruit and retain teachers without providing them and their families with a place to live. A lack of housing contributes to teacher shortages. Furthermore, without onsite housing teachers must often commute long distances on foot, bike or motorcycle, which makes it difficult for teachers to get to work during the rainy season when roads become impassable. For all of these reasons onsite teacher housing is a priority for all of Dumbeta Ward’s schools.
More than ten years ago the government started construction on a head teacher’s house at Gijega Primary School. This project was never completed. Having the head teacher and his family live at the school benefits the community in multiple ways: it improves security at the school, it allows for school land to be farmed, it allows the head teacher to work on school maintenance when the school is closed, and most importantly it makes the head teacher and his family part of the local community. Each year the community has asked the Rafiki Village Project’s help in completing this building. This was our first project for 2019. STATUS: COMPLETED MARCH 2019 COST: $13,163 |
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