Happy Kids Worldwide bouwt verder aan de Leo Primary School in Tanzania

In Tanzania groeit de Leo Primary School met steeds meer kinderen die zich aanmelden voor deze basisschool die gebouwd is met behulp van de sponsorgelden van ‘Happy Kids Worldwide’! Wij zijn zo blij met dit succesvolle project! Uw hulp blijft hierbij hard nodig! Zonder uw hulp geen kinderen naar deze school. Hierbij geven wij u graag een update van Leo Clemence, de directeur van deze basisschool. Hij heeft een voorstel geschreven met concrete toelichting op de zaken die nodig zijn in 2025.

Op dit moment is de school bezig met de bouw van de muur om het schoolterrein. Ook zoeken ze nog dringend fondsen voor de aanschaf van een waterpomp. Indien u wilt investeren wordt u direct op de hoogte gehouden van het resultaat van de donatie, zodat u zeker weet dat alle gelden goed besteed worden voor het vooraf aangegeven doel!

Background

Leo Pre and Primary School – Project proposal 2024/2025

My name is Leodigard Leonidace Clemence, founder and director of Leo Pre and Primary School. I was born in Ruhanga village, Muleba, Kagera region in Tanzania, in 1990. Although by profession I am a nurse-midwife, I noticed a lack of primary education in my home village.

There are many factors contributing to the poor primary education in Ruhanga at this moment. In this section, I will further elaborate three factors; unmotivated teachers, malnutrition and homework.

In 2022 the national census had taken place and in Ruhanga village there were approximately 3.500 children between 5 and 14 years. All these children were supposed to go to the only school in the village, which is a government school. This school is overcrowded. On average there are over 60 students per teacher, which leads to overworked and unmotivated teachers.

In 2018 the stunting rate (malnutrition) in children the Kagera region was estimated to be as high as 40%. In 2020 this was reduced to 35%. Which is still much too high. On top of that, in government schools students do not get any food or sometimes not even water. They leave home early in the morning without breakfast, stay at school during the day with empty stomachs, and then get home to do chores (such as finding firewood, getting water from the river, cultivating land, etc). Some children only eat diner, which, in many families, is the same food every day. Malnutrition is a serious problem in our region. A child cannot thrive well at school when hungry or sick. Malnutrition finally leads to poor education and poor school results.

As previously mentioned, many children start doing their chores when arriving home from school. After finishing their chores, in many houses it will be pitchblack because of the lack of power. These children don’t get time to play with their friends, or do their homework. Not doing homework results in punishment at school, demotivates the students and sometimes even leads to drop outs.

These factors all contribute to poor primary education, which leads to poor secondary education and therefore poor development in the community. I am trying to break this vicious circle in my village by starting Leo Pre and Primary School.

Project

As explained above, there are mainly three factors contributing to the current state of poor education in my village. Unmotivated teachers, malnutrition and lack of time to make homework. In this section I will explain my strategies of attacking these three factors.

The first step is to create quality education, by reducing the number of students per teacher, and by motivating teachers to really stimulate their students. At Leo Pre and Primary School there are no more than 40 students per teacher. Teachers are provided with nutritious meals and room for them and their families to live. Also, our teachers are obligated to write reports on every student. These reports are being discussed with all teachers, including headmaster and director. Every semester, parents are updated on the progress of their children.

The second step to break the circle, is to provide sufficient meals at school. Children study better when their stomachs are filled with nutritious food. At Leo Pre and Primary School students will get porridge (made of a combination maize flour, peanuts, sweet potatoes, cassava flour and rice flower) in the morning, and a hot meal in the afternoon (different each day, consisting of rice, ugali or cooking banana’s, with beans, fish and spinach). There is clean water for handwashing and drinking water available. Plates and cups are provided at school (students do not have to bring anything from home). Besides this, we cultivate various vegetables at the school site (for example spinach and eggplant, and we planted avocado and banana trees).

The third step is to create a time and place where students are allowed to do homework and play. At Leo Pre and Primary School students will finish class at 2:30 in the afternoon, but the classroom and teacher will be available up to 6:00 PM. Children can do their homework alone or together, and are allowed to ask questions. In the morning and again after finishing homework, there is time and space to play with friends. This way, all children will finish their homework before going home, with adequate supervision. This will increase motivation (for students as well as teachers) and therefore improve school results.

In January 2024 the first 4 classes started (e.g. preschool, class 1, 2 and 3). We aim to add one class every year, so our students can grow with us. For every student a relatively small contribution is asked, which is used to pay the salaries of our teachers, food and other daily costs. To date (06/11/2024) we have a total of 40 pupils. For 2025 we expect the number of pupils to increase up to 100.

We thank everyone who contributed to constructing Leo Pre and Primary School and we would like to ask to keep supporting us in our journey to better education.

Planning

At this moment we plan on achieving the following:

In order to create a safe environment for our students and teachers we need to secure our plot with a reliable fence. TZS 18.000.000 / USD 6.170 on 07/11/2024)

Sufficient water access for all purposses on our school. At this moment we rely on the governmental water supply, which is very expensive but also very irreliable. Because of this, some days of the week, there is no water available at the school. Therefore, our students have to carry water from the river up to the school, bucket by bucket. Of course, this is in contradiction with our schools goals of creating an environment in which learning and developing have priority.

Contact

Ik hoop u met deze informatie goed geïnformeerd te hebben,

Namens het team van ‘Happy Kids Worldwide’

Armando van den Berg