Tumaini News: Upcoming Trip to Sakila!

Hujambo, Team Tumaini!
 
It hardly seems possible that we are already preparing for our sixth annual Board trip to Sakila. I am happy to share a few of the highlights I anticipate for our visit next week:
 
1. Student Leaders
We will meet with our oldest students--Barakaeli, Frank, Godlisten, Livingstone, and Martin--who just sat for the national exams to complete their secondary school studies (finishing Form Six)!  I am so proud of these students: they were brilliant fourteen-year-old kids when I first met them, close to seven years ago, eager for an opportunity to attend school; now they are twenty-one-year-old leaders in their community.  We are coordinating with our local partners to try to provide opportunities for some of these students to meet their goal of working as teachers in Sakila so that they can continue to support future generations of Tumaini scholars. 
 
2. New Students
We will add a new class of Form One students to our partnership this year.  One of my favorite parts of each trip is visiting the homes of these new students, often walking one or two hours to reach each home (the distance many of these students walk to reach school each day). A committee of teachers and administrators from the primary and secondary schools has selected these students based on academic merit and financial need.  We will also meet with the families of the students we are currently supporting to review the students' academic progress, encourage the student-mentor program, and reevaluate our mutual financial commitments.  Each family makes a contribution to its student's education, and every scholarship is individually tailored to meet each family's need.
 
3. Local Partnerships
We are excited to keep building our local partnerships in East Africa with caring and committed individuals and like-minded organizations. As Tumaini Tanzania expands and we look forward to a more locally run operation, these relationships become increasingly important.  Many of these partners will help us host a daylong workshop with the students. We will provide a large meal for every student, play fun games, discuss the status of the scholarship program, and continue to explore ways for the students to serve their community.  This year, we are very excited to be joined by two young, caring East African couples: a Tanzanian husband-wife couple who are both doctors at a prestigious hospital in a nearby town, and a Kenyan husband-wife couple who are engaged in various for-profit and non-profit endeavor around the region. 
 
4. Board Members
I continue to be very grateful for the dedication and generosity ofTumaini Tanzania’s Board of Directors here in the United States. These Directors recently met for a weekend retreat to outline the future of the organization, and two members, Duncan and Prentice, will join me on this year’s trip to Sakila. The Board is discussing ways to make sure Tumaini Tanzania remains an effective organization that you can trust, from re-thinking how we communicate with donors to exploring low-cost fundraising options, and will continue these discussions with our local partners.
 
As always, the individual Board members who are going on this visit (Duncan, Prentice, and I) are personally funding the costs of this trip -- you can be sure that 100% of your donations are always applied directly to the community in Sakila.
 
We plan on gathering lots of photos, videos, and stories during our time in Sakila to provide a glimpse of the lives you are touching.  We look forward to sharing these on our website (www.tumainitanzania.org) when we return.  Thank you for keeping us and the Tumaini community in your thoughts and prayers over the next two weeks.

Mungu akubariki (God bless),
 

Tumaini News: April 2012

Dear Team Tumaini:
 
Once again, I returned from the most recent Board trip to Sakila even more awed by -- and so appreciative of -- the indelible impact that your support has made possible in this village.  Erik, Anna, Jen, and I cherished every moment we were able to spend with our Tumaini partners in Tanzania: amazing students, gracious families, and inspiring teachers and administrators. Please click here or see the text to the right to learn how you can continue to invest in this community during 2012.
 
I invite you to check out Erik and Anna’s great account of our trip through the pictures and commentary they placed on their personal blog (click here).  While we work to add more photos and videos to Tumaini Tanzania’s website, too, I’m happy to share a few highlights of our trip: 
 
1. New Students
Twelve new Form One students – ten girls and two boys– joined our awesome corps of Tumaini scholars! These kids are smart, hardworking, and have a lot of personality, and none of them would be attending school if not for a scholarship from Tumaini Tanzania. We visited the homes of each of these students (walking two-hours to reach some!), met with their grateful families, and gave a flashlight to each child – which was, for many, the first gift they had ever personally received. Each family is making a financial contribution to invest in its son or daughter's education, and all the families were overjoyed to join the partnership -- one father exclaimed that our visit was "like a miracle."  These 12 new students bring the current total number of Tumaini scholars at the Sakila Secondary School to 54, spanning each grade of the school (Forms I – IV)! 
 

Erik and Lide walking with some of our new Form I students to visit their homes.

Anna and Jen with Faraja, one of our new Form I students, and Faraja's father at their home.

Tumaini's newest scholars!

2. Beyond Form Four
It has been exciting to watch Tumaini scholars continue to mature beyond Form 4 (the highest grade currently offered at the Sakila Secondary School).  Tumaini Tanzania is now sponsoring five students in Form VI, two students in Form V, and four students in Teachers College– all of these students are from Sakila, they and their families have partnered with Tumaini Tanzania for many years, and they are now studying in towns across Tanzania thanks to a Tumaini scholarship. Additionally, the Board worked with local partners on this trip to develop a plan so that Tumaini students will also have the option to attend a vocational school (nursing, tourism, public affairs, etc.) in the future. This would certainly require Tumaini Tanzania to raise more funds, but the goal is worthwhile and attainable.  
 
We were able to visit two of the students we are sponsoring who attend Teachers College, Neema and Barakaeli.  Sitting in one of the classes Barakaeli was teaching as part of his fieldwork at a primary school in Arusha, we were amazed by what a stellar teacher he is.  Barakaeli was in elementary school when I first met him; watching him instruct the elementary-aged students brought tears to my eyes: it was one of the most incredible moments I have experienced over the past six years of my engagement with this community.  Seeing the confident, smart, caring, and mature young man he has become – and the other lives he is now transforming – certainly confirmed our commitment to these students.  
 

Barakaeli teaching an elementary school class in Arusha.

Erik, Lide, and Anna visiting Neema at a Teachers College where she is completing her first year.

3. Annual Workshop
Continuing an annual tradition, we held a daylong workshop with the students on the last weekend of our visit.  Tumaini's oldest students led the full programof fun games, teambuilding activities, and discussions of how the students can support each other and invest in their community.  We had planned for a female doctor from a nearby Tanzanian hospital to speak to our students this year, but unfortunately a countrywide medical strike prevented her from being able to join us. So, Godlisten, Godwin, and Emmanueli – three of our students who had recently completed Form IV – offered to deliver speeches and did a wonderful job.  The three young men encouraged the younger students by sharing their own experiences of pursuing personal excellence and hope for their families, through faith, despite the daily hardship of life in Sakila. The highlight of the workshop each year is the large feast, funded by Tumaini Tanzania and prepared by a local mama, that the students enjoy.  This year's huge and delicious meal was no exception!  
 

Tumaini students line up for the large meal!

All of Tumaini's scholars at the end of the workshop!

4. Sammy Mwaniki
One of the best parts of this year's trip was that our close friend Sammy Mwaniki came to Tanzania for a few days.  Sammy is from Kenya, currently lives in Nairobi, spent a year in DC for a program with a church that several ofTumaini Tanzania’s American partners attend, and has supported a number of non-profit ventures in East Africa: he uniquely understands both East African and American perspectives, so the Board really cherishes his honest insight and trusts his wisdom. Sammy has been a wonderful sounding board for Tumaini Tanzania for many years and this year kindly rearranged his schedule to join us in the village for a few days. He provided constructive advice for how to even better engage parents and local leaders and how to enable the students to continue to take strong ownership of their potential.  But by and large, Sammy affirmed what we're doing and how we're doing it. His very positive impressions of our students, families, and other local partners gave us even greater confidence in the relational model we've adopted -- i.e., constantly ensuring that all our projects are motivated by the community, careful not to expand too quickly or ever exceed the bounds of the natural relationships we have established -- which is at the heart of the sustainability of the organization. We were thrilled to receive Sammy’s objective feedback and are very excited to continue to benefit from Sammy’s experience and wisdom as we humbly strive to make Tumaini Tanzania as effective as possible.  

And, as always, we remain incredibly grateful for our several partners on the ground in Sakila who volunteer their time and energy to serve Tumaini Tanzania's students. In particular, I am increasingly inspired by Msoffe, the soft spoken headmaster of the secondary school who is so highly respected across the region, and by Mbwambo, the joyful teacher whose selfless dedication to this community is in part fueled by his own thankfulness for the support he received as a child from an organization similar to Tumaini Tanzania.  
 

Sammy, Erik, Msoffe, Lide, and Mbwambo.

Thank you, so much, for your continued support of this community.  To invest in a student's life in 2012, please click here or see the text box to the right.  
 
Mungu awabariki,
(God bless),