Enabled to reach their potential

Nine bright teenagers from the dusty rural floor of Tanzania's Great Rift Valley were stuck. They had the brains, but their families didn't have the means to send them to secondary school.

The oldest church in the village, Engaruka Lutheran Parish, has a companion congregation in the United States, St. Paul Lutheran Church in Sterling, Illinois. Through the generosity of its members, St. Paul has given those nine students the chance to go to secondary school.

The per capita income here, depending on how you measure it, is about $700 per year. Secondary school (a.k.a. high school in the US) costs more than $500 per student per year, a cost that is well out of reach of most Tanzanian families.

These nine students were brought to the regional capital, Arusha, from three villages within Engaruka Lutheran Parish. They were chosen by scholarship committees in their villages to take an exam, and the recipients were chosen from among those who passed. At Enaboishu Secondary School in Arusha, they have entered Form 1 (freshman year) together and with their continued good performance, they will stay together through Form 4. All are from the Maasai tribe and coming from the same district, Monduli. Among them are soccer players, bookworms, goat herders, subsistence farmers, choir members, and jokesters. They each contribute something to the dynamic of the group.

Education obtained through the teaching of the national syllabus, though, isn't enough. They need life skills. To improve on skills such as creativity, leadership, conflict resolution, and language, the students will be doing small projects, writing essays, and taking tutorials sessions to learn English. Those assignments are being posted to a blog.

Exams in Tanzanian secondary schools are conducted in English. Students from rural areas where English is not spoken are disadvantaged. These students are being given English lessons, as well as special Saturday school for discussing topics that can really help them in their lives and livelihoods, such as entrepreneurship, creative thinking, problem solving, health, and interpersonal communication.

This project was named as the Rafiki Mwema scholarship program by the students. It means Good Friend in the national language, Swahili. It was chosen in honor of the good friends they have at St. Paul Lutheran Church, and in honor of the friendships they are entering into with each other through the scholarship.

The links on the right will direct you to their photo page on Picasa, their homework & projects blog, the report on the scholarship, and general information about the Tanzanian education system.