Christmas is coming

The shops are stocked and it's time to plan your household decorations.

There are lots of places where you can look to find interesting and unusual Christmas decorations and gifts. The best gifts are those that help the maker and the giver, as well as the receiver.

Fair trade crafts from Africa will fit the bill nicely!

What about these cheerful Santas? They are nicely surreal. Check them out at One World Projects.


These Santas (8-9 inches tall) are made in Mali from soft drink cans. They are made by a project that supports anti-malarial initiatives.

I think I will share more of the curiosities I have come across in the next few weeks. You may see something that takes your fancy.

If you'd like to see some Fair Trade crafts, check out your nearest Oxfam shop, locations can be found here. I was pleased to find a new one open up nearby. Now I've got a local source of Fair Trade coffee. It tastes pretty good too.

Good aid :: Bad aid

Not all aid to poor countries is good. In fact some people say that all aid is bad. There are volumes of examples where well-meaning aid has turned out to be harmful. For example, African street markets have lots of second-hand clothes stalls that feature the clothes bagged and put into charity bins in wealthy countries. The abundance of these cheap clothes means that no local clothes manufacturers can compete, and garment industries simply don't get off the ground.

Beyond any Drought is a report on development and aid in three countries in the African Sahel – Niger, Mali, and Burkino Faso. The key recommendations in the report can be applied to development projects in Tanzania, and to the School of St Jude specifically.

Sahel area of Africa

1. Increase long-term assistance; stay the course. All interventions should be over at least 10 years.

• The School of St Jude meets this requirement, because Gemma has family roots in Tanzania and this is her life work. Current activities are set within a long term framework that extends decades into the future.

2. Accept that the situation has changed

• The School of St Jude has shown that it can adapt to rapid change by gearing up rapidly when world-wide support flourished. Gemma has the management skills to keep a goal in view, while adapting to changing circumstances.

3. Understand the detail

• The School is managed right there, on the ground. The impact and effectiveness of every bag of cement is known. This deep familiarity with detail means that the School develops appropriately and effectively.

4. Plan to improve capacity

• The School has programs and training in place to develop leadership capacity in staff, so that the leadership team grows with the school. This local expertise will underpin the long term viability of the School.
  

5. Build on successes

• In her book, St Jude's, Gemma describes how she has learned from mistakes and events that didn't turn out as expected. From these experiences, she has learned what works, and she continues to apply these lessons. For example, she has learned to be rigorous in selecting capable children from poor families, and she has learned to check and check again to avoid dishonest practices.

6. Believe in flexibility

• The School of St Jude aims to support the best elements of Tanzanian culture combined with Australian excellence. The cross-cultural approach and rapid growth of the school have meant that flexibility has been a key requirement!

I have great confidence in this project. The School of St Jude delivers quality education to 870 capable children from the poorest households. The local demand for places in the school is massive. 15,000 applicants try for the 170 places each year. There is no doubt that there is local demand for quality education, and that the School of St Jude, delivers what parents want for their children.

This is only possible with the help of people who care to share what they have with others who have less.

Vanity Fair – winds of change

Look! Can you see? The shape-shifters are at work in the landscape of our lives.

In my youth, extreme and desperate poverty was common throughout Africa, Asia and Central/South America. I thought it would always be like that. I also thought that the Berlin Wall would endure like the Great Wall of China or Hadrian’s Wall.

I got on with my life, raising my kids. The next time I looked, the Berlin Wall came down and I discovered that most Asian and Central/South American countries were well on the way to lifting themselves out of extreme poverty. That left only Africa. And world leaders are taking it on!

I see the power that is being leveraged into helping African countries…. leaders like Tony Blair are REALLY pushing this, philanthropists like Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett are on board, and influential economists like Jeffrey Sachs are driving international policy (e.g. Millennium Development Goals). Celebrity entertainers are leveraging their fame to focus attention on the needs and possibilities of change in Africa.

The winds of change are blowing through our lives.

Jeffrey Sachs at Ruhiira, a Millennium Village in Uganda

The latest (July 2007) issue of Vanity Fair has a special feature on Africa with 20 covers of Annie Liebowitz photos of Americans who are active in Africa. This issue has real information as well as goodies like Youssou N'Dour's personal playlist that you can download from the iTunes Music Store for $US9.99 which goes to the Global Fund to fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

The hundreds of supporters of the School of St Jude part of this wave of change. We are making history. We are working together on a radical transformation that will transform the world our children live in.



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Where’s the evidence?

I guess you can tell that I think the School of St Jude is a great project. What was it that convinced me?

I was enthusiastic from my very first encounter with the School, on the ABC’s Australian Story program. I saw that Gemma had the right skills and was committed to the project. And I saw that the work of the School is much needed.

Since then, I have taken every avenue to find out more about the School. I read the annual reports on the website and the newsletters. I read blogs by people who have visited or volunteered there. I keep in touch with other supporters. I have learnt a lot about Tanzania and development aid to Africa. I met Gemma on her recent visit to Australia.

I have not discovered a single thing that has slowed my enthusiasm. If anything, I have become more amazed by the scope of the project and the effectiveness of its approach.
However, as I have some experience in program evaluation, I thought I would start to document this evaluation. It might help to give others the confidence to lend their support to the School of St Jude.

Students perform at St Jude's Day

There are three aspects to evaluating any program:

• Is it appropriate? Does it it fill a real need?
• Is it effective? Does it get good results?
• Is it efficient? Does it makes maximum use of its resources?

To get a good score, a program has to rate highly on all three things.

Here’s my thumbnail summary.

Does it fill a real need? Education is essential in breaking the cycle of poverty. Tanzania has one of the poorest education records in the world. UNESCO ranks Tanzania 6th last of all countries on education, with an average of 5.1 years education, compared with 18+ years for countries at the top of the table. Nationally, the teacher-student ratio was 59 in 2006. The Tanzanian government has been able to put more resources into education since gaining debt relief, but the task ahead is massive. 35% of Tanzanians live below the poverty line of $1 a day, and it is their children who fall below the average of 5.1 years of education. In these conditions, capable children from poor households have no chance of reaching their potential.

Does the School of St Jude provide an effective education for Tanzanian children? The School specialises in providing excellent education for capable children from poor homes. Rigorous screening ensures that children are academically capable and that they come from disadvantaged homes – if they have more than two rooms, concrete floors or electricity, they don’t qualify.

In 2007 the School enrolled 850 children in six grades. The school adds 160 children each year and is building a second campus. In national examinations, the School of St Jude has ranked third amongst all schools in the northern district and 10 children from St Jude’s have been in the top 20 of 17,000 students. So it is clear that the school is delivering excellent educational outcomes. It does this by providing meals, transport and clothing to students, and by strong educational practice, supported by professional development for teachers.

The School is in the process of building weekday boarding facilities and a secondary school. Long-term plans for a teachers college along with a tertiary education scholarship fund will meet the entire educational needs of bright children from impoverished homes.

Does it makes maximum use of its resources? I am constantly astonished by how much the School achieves with the resources it has. The resources include financial donations, volunteer work (long term volunteers and short term visitors) and in-kind or discounted services such as graphic design, website, accounting and shipping.

I am impressed by the no-frills decisons about infrastructure such as the school hall, which is basically a concrete slab with a metal roof. In addition, Gemma seems to have the ability to balance and prioritise her expenses to match the likely funds. On the one hand there is never anything left over, and on the other hand, she manages to avoid over-stretching.

The School has been successful in scaling-up its operations to fit the success in raising funds. This scaling-up has balanced needs such as new infrastructure, staff development as well as adding services such as school meals.

In an indepth feature on the ABC news on 1 May 2007, Gemma says:

It's a very romantic idea, setting up a medical centre or an orphanage or a school, but the nuts and bolts of it, on the ground, is extremely hard.

If Africa was easy to solve, then it would have been solved a long time ago.

So, if you care about important issues like breaking the cycle of poverty, and want to know more about an effective program that is fighting poverty through education, keep reading this blog. When you are ready to lend your assistance, visit the school website and offer what you can. Oh, and there's no harm in telling your friends, is there?



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I can’t help but encourage you

What is ‘normal’ for me? Whatever it is that is normal for me becomes the entirety of the world I live in. I tend to screen out other things – they are ‘out there’ or ‘over there’; they are less real than my normal world. My sense of ‘normal’ defines the horizons within which live.

With my interest in the School of St Jude, I find that my horizons of ‘normal’ are expanding. Suddenly a new horizon appears over the edge of the old horizon. I can now name all the countries in Africa; I have learnt to place each one on the map. I know the issues and I know some of the stories. I have become an activist.

I can’t help but encourage you to visit The Guardian newspaper site that is presenting news about the upcoming G8 meeting in Germany in June. They have all the regular news stories about the event, including a piece about the 7.5km security fence that will be built around the resort town where the meeting will be held. This touched my interest because of debate here in Sydney about the silliness that is likely to occur in Sydney later in the year when the APEC meeting is held in the city centre. With current security concerns, it seems very stupid to hold these high profile meetings in major cities. At least in Germany, they are closing off a regional town rather than a major city centre!

The surprising thing about the Guardian site is that they are doing more than reporting the odds and ends around running the G8 meeting – they have taken a deliberately activitist position by presenting the stories of eight African women, each one with a key message for the G8 meeting. Now this is an example of the press REALLY doing its job. They are making the news, as well as reporting the news.

Check out The Guardian site for the stories of the eight women – especially the story of the Tanzanian nurse, Sabina Nicholas, whose four daughters walk miles to get 10 buckets of water in the morning and again in the evening for their household of 14 people. This is because the water utility failed and their district no longer has running water, so they have to buy it by the bucket from trucks.

So, I can't help but encourage you to expand your horizons, redefine 'normal' and live in a whole new world.



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How many countries are there in Africa?

Here are some more fun resources for learning the names of all the countries in Africa. There are 53 of them, including the islands – Madagascar, Comoros, Seychelles, Cape Verde and Sao Tome and Principe.

In an earlier post , I gave a neat countdown tool from UC Berkeley that gives you 10 minutes to name all the countries.

Now I have found some other fun ways to learn the countries. Owl and Mouse has a free download that lets you drop outlines of the countries onto the map of Africa.

43 things has a challenge that asks you to point to the countries as they are named. And PurposeGames has a similar map with a counter tells you how long you took and colour codes indicate whether it took you 1, 2 or 3 tries to identify it. As you mouse-over different countries, their names appear, and that helps you learn them.

I thought I would do OK on this task because I have learnt the names of all the countries by doing the Berkeley challenge. But so far I keep getting stuck on one of the countries. Where IS Malawi!! (OK, that long thing isn’t a lake, it is a country!). On my latest try, I scored 86% in 3.5 minutes. Definite improvement!

You’ll want a good map so you can study the countries before you take any of these challenges. Here is one from WorldAtlas.com.


Check out new developments in the formation of the East African Community in this item on my blog.

I don’t know about you, but I find it stimulating and expansive to learn new things. Somehow, the world is becoming a clearer place for me now that I know a lot more about Africa. Knowing the shape of the continent and having a better idea about the countries, gives me an indefinably clearer understanding of the issues and news I encounter.

The children at the School of St Jude in northern Tanzania are learning something similar. Their world is expanding as they receive a standard of education that is only possible through the support of people like you and me.

Why don't you take one of these learning challenges and report your score here?

Or you could just click through to the School of St Jude and make a small donation! Go on – make use of the interactivity of the web!



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A day in the life of four women

8 March 2007 - Imagine that your main dream is finding enough food to feed your children every day and your hopes focus on returning to the home from which you were forced to flee. To mark International Women's Day, four African women tell us about their thoughts and their daily lives.

This World Food Programme website features a day in the life of four African women. It gives a wonderful parallel with the four women I profiled in my last post to this blog.

Fatime Gassi's husband and child were slaughtered by Arab militia when they attacked her village in Chad

I encourage you to read these short accounts of these four women. We need to open our eyes and allow ourselves to see what the lives of others are like. When we stay busy with our own immediate concerns, we become blind to larger perspectives.

One of the women, Veronique Begimana from Burundi, says:

But without food or money it’s difficult to have hope for the future. Things don’t change very much for us. Life isn’t beautiful.

The School of St Jude in northern Tanzania serves the children of the poorest people, to provide them with quality education and give them hope for the future. Your contribution will help.




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Countries of Africa Challenge!

Here's a fun game developed by UC Berkeley students. This website challenges you to name the 53 African countries in 10 minutes. A clock counts down as you type in the names. When you have finished, it posts the names of the countries you omitted.

African Country Countdown

On my first try, I got a miserable 25 countries. I forgot some of the big ones (like Algeria, duh!) but I was pleased to get some unlikely ones. I tried it on my husband and it was fun to see the ones he knew that I missed. And even more fun to see the ones I got that he didn't!

Now I think I'll try a daily challenge. Let's see how long it takes me to learn the names of all the countries in Africa. I'll post my daily tally here – to keep me honest!

Would you like to try it too? Post your daily tally in the comments section. Let's see all our numbers grow. Here's a map of Africa as a reference. As we learn the names of the countries, we can check the map to see where they are, how big they are and what their climate is likely to be.

Map Source: BBC

The School of St Jude is in northern Tanzania, near the border with Kenya. How many countries have borders with Tanzania?




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Another great map!

The World Resources Institute report, World Resources 2005 -- The Wealth of the Poor: Managing ecosystems to fight poverty, details the steps necessary to empower the poor to use ecosystems both wisely and for wealth. The book presents lots of current information on environmental, social, and economic trends in more than 150 countries. The full World Resources database is accessible and searchable online at EarthTrends.

Here is one of the maps from the book. It shows how climate change will affect growing seasons in Africa in 2000-2050. The brown areas show which areas will be under greater stress through reduced agricultural production.



As I am deeply interested Tanzania, I peer closely at the map to see how it will be affected. I see that most of Tanzania is brown, meaning shorter growing seasons and lower food production. This means more malnourished children who will die young of preventable diseases.

The following map shows that in 1996 ALL districts of Tanzania had more than 14% of children underweight. In some districts, this was up to 48%. These figures can only get worse when climate change reduces the length of growing seasons.



I feel some relief to see that the northern edge of Tanzania, where the School of St Jude is in Arusha, will have longer growing seasons. Still, the country as a whole is facing the prospect of greater stress on food production.

When we care about an issue, we seek information so we are informed. We want to know what happens at the local level and also at the larger, national level. We want to know what is happening right now, and what the longer term holds. With good information, we have a clearer view and can make informed choices.

I believe that education is an investment in the future. For a relatively small donation to the School of St Jude, you can equip a bright child from the poorest family to be a teacher, doctor, nurse, engineer, a leader of the future. Desperately poor countries like Tanzania CANNOT advance without these professional skills. What a huge gift you will give – to the individual child, their family, their community and their country.



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Dynamic map of African history

Here’s a gorgeous thing from Brown University.

Animated Atlas of African History

The Animated Atlas of African History is a map that shows year-by-year changes of selected themes in the history of Africa between 1879 and 2002. Toggle buttons allow you to select which thematic layers to activate. Choices include:

• Territory names
• Changing boundaries, imperial rulers and political systems
• Violent conflicts
• Economic and demographic trends

You can advance or reverse the chronology and change the speed and pause on particular years. The site also offers a textual summary of the year-by-year changes. The Flash-based animation may be operated interactively on the web or downloaded as Mac OS X or Windows executibles.

The map is designed to be an instructional tool at the secondary and college levels as well as for the general learner.

Brown University teaches a course in African Environmental History. Check out the online course guide for some great resources.

What a great educational resource! And because it is online, the kids at St Judes can use it to learn about African history. I love it when these extremely poor children living in homes with dirt floors and no electricity can access excellent learning resources like this!

Thanks Brown University! This outreach program is great!



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What was I just saying...

It was only two days ago that I commented that there were no market incentives to develop vaccines for diseases like malaria that affect poor countries but not rich countries. The World Bank has just reported that the Group of Seven (G7) rich countries, led by Italy, has signed an agreement to provide $1.5 billion to develop vaccines for poor countries.

HM Queen Rania of Jordan

The new Advanced Market Commitments for Vaccines program, under the auspices of the G7, is ‘aimed at saving millions of lives in the poorest countries and supporting their economic growth with new methods,’ the Italian economy ministry said. The mechanism involves donor nations making a prior commitment to buy vaccines which are under development at a preferential price once they are launched, thereby creating a demand-led market for new vaccines needed by poor countries.

Italy, Britain, Canada and Norway announced funding commitments at a ceremony attended by Italian Economy Minister Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa, Britain's Gordon Brown, Canada's Jim Flaherty and World Bank chief Paul Wolfowitz. Jordan's Queen Rania presided over the launch and the G7 officials explained the program in person to Pope Benedict at the Vatican before traveling to Essen in Germany for the G7 meeting.

I’m rather intrigued by the cast at this carefully staged event – queens, popes, presidents, chiefs and ministers. It’s almost medieval. Technology might change but politics doesn’t. “Be nice to people who have power” is the golden rule for getting anything done.




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On the buses!

The School of St Jude is situated down a dirt road in the village of Moshono which is 5km along another dirt road from Arusha. Children come to school each day along the rough dirt roads from Arusha and the surrounding villages of this beautiful but very poor district. Most people are subsistence farmers who make barely enough to feed their families. Malaria, HIV/AIDS and other diseases take a heavy toll on these families and many children are orphaned.

A year or two after the School opened, it became evident that many children were walking for several hours to get to school. So, the School bought two battered old buses and rejuvenated them.


As the school has grown, the two buses have grown to a fleet of 18. Like everything else at the school, the funding for buses is provided by sponsors and donors. For $500 pa you can sponsor a bus and contribute to the costs of running them.

An important donation came from Rotary District 9640 (in Queensland) in April 2006. Using a multi-district Matching Grant, they were able to provide the School with two new buses, an assortment of spare springs and tyres, and a motor vehicle maintenance course to be run at the School.

Here is Gemma receiving the grant money - surprised but delighted.

Gemma Sisia, Heather + Ian Yarker, Ailsa Hay

The buses at the school provide vital transport that makes school attendance possible for many children. Even with the over-crowded buses, many children have a long walk home after the bus drops them. These buses don’t offer Western-standard transport, but they do give bright children from the poorest households an opportunity to get their foot on the first rung of the ladder of opportunity. Guaranteed!

A development project in an impoverished African country that is well-run, economical and successful in reaching the poor - something you will want to support!

Millenium Villages Project

Wow! We know that Gemma Sisia thinks big. We know that Jeffrey Sachs thinks big. But how big is big? ‘Don’t ask little of me’ certainly applies to these people!

Gemma is growing the school at a rapid rate and has the long term aim of reproducing the hugely successful formula across Tanzania and East Africa. Jeffrey has identified the key factors that maintain the cycle of extreme poverty. He has established a project that will break this cycle in a five-year timeframe for the cost of US$110 per person per year. He believes that after five years of help (sufficient to leverage the threshold effect) poor villages can function sustainably without sinking back into extreme poverty.

Millenium Village, Bonsaaso, in Ghana

To put his ideas into practice, he has established the Millenium Villages Project which is run under the auspices of The Earth Institute at Columbia University. Millenium Villages started in 2004 with the Sauri village of 5,000 people in Kenya. In the first year, food production quadrupled with the help of fertiliser and new seed varieties, the health clinic re-opened and a midday meal was provided at the three primary schools.

To extend the Millenium Villages project, Sachs drew on his formidable support network to found Millenium Promise. In the first year, 2005, Millenium Promise raised US$100 million and now Millenium Villages is working in 78 villages in 10 African countries.

Sachs is a very persuasive man. He has the evidence to support his views and the heart to care.

There are many questions to answer about what happens next to these villages in the complexities of a whole economy, but there can be little doubt that this on-the-spot assistance to the poorest of villages will make a life-and-death difference to the 500,000 people who won’t have to watch one in four of their children die before the age of five.

Gemma Sisia and Jeffrey Sachs are both people to watch. They have big hearts and big goals. You, like George Soros who gave US$50 million to Millenium Promise, can help by giving money, encouraging others to give, and lobbying your government to meet its promise to lift foreign aid to 0.7% of GDP.

Ours can be the last human generation to know extreme poverty.

Anti-corruption fights poverty

Corruption seems to be common in all very poor countries. It is one of the factors that feed the cycle of poverty – when donors see their aid syphoned off into private hands, they back away, and the poor remain poor.


Recently, donor countries have linked their donations to evidence of progress on anti-corruption measures. The Tanzanian government has been working on anti-corruption legislation that will provide better conditions for accessing information, improve the possibilities of sanctioning persons found guilty of corruption, and protect whistle blowers.

This legislation was due to be tabled in 2006 but the deadline was missed. Because of this, Denmark slashed 20% ($3.9 million) of its aid pledge to the Tanzanian government for budget support during the 2007/08 period, saying it was concerned about the delay in dealing with graft.

Denmark had granted general budget support to Tanzania of up $103.8 million for the period of 2006 to 2010. It was agreed by the two countries that 20% of the support be linked to specific achievement indicators of tabling anti-corruption legislation. The government says the Bill will be tabled in the House this year. That may help to ensure that they don’t have another 20% slashed next year!

The importance of anti-corruption legislation has been underlined by a news report in The Guardian this week. The report notes that in 2002 the UK's biggest arms supplier, BAE Systems, secretly paid a $12m commission into a Swiss account in a deal which led to Tanzania buying a controversial military radar system.

A Tanzanian middleman, who has a long-standing relationship with military and government figures, has admitted that the sum was covertly moved to a Swiss account by BAE Systems, which is under investigation by the British Serious Fraud Office.

The School of St Jude is run to benefit very poor children. It works hard to ensure that every dollar donated is used to provide excellent education for these bright children. Careful supervision of expenses and rigorous accounting ensure that money is well-spent. See the 2006 Annual Report on the school website.

Value for money!

In 2006 the School of St Jude educated 700 primary age children at a cost of $1,000,000. That is $1,429 per student. This amount includes all expenses associated with running the school, including capital works (purchase of 30 acres and new building of 10 classroom block).

Classroom block nearly complete, December 2006

In comparison, in 2005 the NSW Education department educated 1.1 million students (primary, secondary and TAFE) at a cost of $10,145,000,000; that is $9,900 per student. This also includes all expenses associated with running educational institutions, except, of course that in NSW capital works take up a much smaller proportion of the overall budget than the rapidly expanding School of St Jude.

It seems to me that the School of St Jude offers donors excellent value for money.

We can only wonder at what Tanzania could achieve if it had the same resources for education that NSW has. I regularly read announcements of aid to Tanzania amounting to hundreds of millions – for example the British government gave $275 million in 2005/06. It seems like a lot of money. But it is very little compared with the $10,000 million every year that NSW spends on its 1.1 million students.

I have heard people say that aid has not worked – Africa is still a basket case despite all the aid given over the years. But when you compare the amounts given to African countries for education with the real amount that it costs developed countries to offer the same service, we can see that the aid given is miniscule. It is not enough to improve anything, in fact it hardly serves to maintain the poorest of possibilities.

So, let’s get on with the job of sharing the resources that we were lucky to be born into. Your support of the School of St Jude will make a massive difference to hundreds of children and their families. These well-educated children will grow up to be thoughtful citizens and future leaders of Tanzania.

Tanzanian women – world leaders

The new Secretary-General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon, has appointed a Tanzanian woman for the top job, as the Deputy Secretary General. Dr. Asha-Rose Migiro is currently the Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation of the United Republic of Tanzania. Prior to this post, she was the Minister for Community Development, Gender and Children. In her academic career, Dr. Migiro rose to the rank of a Senior Lecturer at the Faculty of Law of the University of Dar-es-Salaam.

Dr. Asha-Rose Migiro – UN Deputy Secretary General

Mr. Ban said, "She is a highly respected leader who has championed the cause of developing countries over the years. Through her distinguished service in diverse areas, she has displayed outstanding management skills with wide experience and expertise in socio-economic affairs and development issues.

"I have deep confidence in and respect for her, and intend to delegate much of the management and administrative work of the Secretariat, as well as socio-economic affairs and development issues, under a clear line of authority to ensure that the Secretariat will function in a more effective and efficient manner."

Dr Migiro has a master's degree in law from the University of Dar es Salaam and a doctorate in law from Germany's Konstanz University. She lives with her husband and two daughters.
With the UN appointment, she will be the highest ranking woman at the United Nations and the second-highest among all UN officials.

This appointment shows that, with the benefit of a good education, Tanzanians can contribute at a global level. Your support of the School of St Jude will help ensure that hundreds of capable children from the poorest families will get an excellent education, making them the future leaders of Tanzania, and the world.

Water Sector Support Program

Drought has thrown Tanzania into crisis. While the country has one of the highest levels of natural water storage capacity per capita in Africa, more than 15 million people out of a population of 35 million are without a safe water supply. Moreover, the country relies heavily on rain-fed agriculture as a major contributor to its economy, with limited headwater storage for irrigated agriculture or for the hydro-electricity schemes. The current drought has reduced farm production and caused 18-hour per day electricity blackouts.

25m dam for hydro-electricity on the Kihansi River

The $900m Water Sector Support Program aims to build governance capacity in the Tanzanian water ministry, the National Urban Water Authority (NUWA), and prepare medium and long term plans that will improve the use of Tanzania’s water resources and set up a permanent supply of clean water.

Key activities of the Water Sector Support Program are

• river and lake basin management and development plans for five major rivers and four lakes
• management information system for the NUWA
  
• procedures and guidelines for environmental monitoring
• policy making

This program will give NUWA better skills and tools for effective long-term management of water which will help improve the water supply, hydropower, irrigation, and flood control.
The patchwork of international aid is evident in the list of donors who will contribute to this $900million program – the World Bank; the African Development Bank; the US Millennium Challenge Account; the governments of Switzerland, the Netherlands and Germany; and the NGOs WaterAid and UN Habitat.

It seems to me that this hodgepodge of aid organisations much be very inefficient! Imagine all the resources that get chewed up in coordination and accounting. I guess that this is probably inevitable where large scale projects address systemic issues.

I like the directness of a simple project like the School of St Jude because you give directly to the school and they spend the money directly on the kids.


The scarcity of water in Tanzania, is one reason why Mary-Elaine, a volunteer at St Judes, commented that buckets seem to be the very foundation upon which the country is built!

While individuals can make a big difference at the personal level, we really need to see assistance in capacity-building at the national level, if the country is to grow beyond the grinding cycle of perpetuating poverty. In Tanzania, we have reason for hope, because we see assistance given at both levels.

Sewing lady

I mentioned the Sewing Lady in an earlier post, now here is the story of how the School of St Jude came to have a Sewing Lady.

Repairing uniforms keeps the kids well-clothed

When Lynne Hodgson visited The School of St Jude school with a tour group she heard some of the children being chastised for the poor state of their uniforms. The School supplies all the uniforms as part of the sponsorship package and they expect them to be kept clean and in good repair.

Unfortunately, in some cases the child’s guardian may be a poorly sighted grandparent or overworked or alcoholic parent who has no time or ability to keep the uniform in good order. Of course the School is sympathetic sees that standards must be maintained.

Lynne came up with the great idea - a generous offer to pay the wages of a local woman who could come in every day and go through the classrooms and find sweaters with holes, shirts without buttons, dresses without ties and repair them all.

A great burden has been taken from many parents, the morale of many children has lifted and the uniform committee is greatly relieved now that Stephanie has been employed. And there is one more member of the local community with a full-time job!

This story has a particular impression on me because I think that sewing is a very skilled activity that is often unrecognised. It is often carried out as an act of love when we make things for the people close to us, or as a fundraiser. I will show you what I am making for one of my daughters in a day or two.

And you can browse my previous posts to read about the quilt that a Mennonite church in the US made as a fundraiser for the Mennonite church in Arusha. They raised $4,000 when they auctioned it.

So, we can enourage each other to use our skills to benefit others.

Blade Runner St Jude

There is something surreal about the School of St Jude. In some ways it seems entirely familiar – kindy classes wear lion masks and present little plays; older classes go on excursions to worthwhile places. But then, something odd shows up in the school newsletter, like the wrong answer to a question in Blade Runner and you realise that this school cannot be quite like the schools we are familiar with.

• How many schools do you know that have 15,000 kids lined up at the gates on Fridays in October, seeking to win a place in the school?
• How many schools in your area have a sewing lady who spends each day mending and repairing the clothes of the kids?
• What schools do you know that take only one child per family?
• And how many schools offer free lunches – OK, we know that British schools do cheap lunches, but that is the land of Monty Python and Harry Potter afterall. And Jamie Oliver has shown us how bad the ‘food’ is.

The School of St Jude is for the poorest of the poor. Children who come from homes with more than two rooms, or houses with floors or window glass are not eligible. This school is for people who are REALLY poor. Nevertheless, the school encourages the children to be generous and giving.

Each year the school celebrates the Feast Day of St Jude Thaddeus (28th October).

Father Julio presides over a great celebration where each class gives a presentation. Then there is communion for those who are Catholic and blessings for those of other faiths.

Communion and blessings

During the service while Fr Julio was giving communion to the confirmed Catholics and the staff choir sang, he asked a number of teachers from various religions, tribes and countries to bless all the other students. It is a wonderfully uniting part of the service and again we thank Fr Julio for bringing everyone together so superbly.

A key element of the day is that each child brings a gift to be given to those in need in nearby orphanages and hospitals.

Although the children in this school come from very poor families, sometimes having only one meal a day and sleeping three to a bed, I feel that they need to understand how important it is to give to others. At our St Jude’s Day celebration, every student is asked to bring a gift to say thanks for all that they have to be grateful - their families, their friends, their teachers, their sponsors, the school’s donors, the cooks and cleaners, the drivers, the administration staff, the groundsmen and the guards. Every person in every section is a vital cog in The School of St Jude machine. So it is on this day that the children get the chance to show their gratitude.

Gifts from grateful families

Here are some of masses of gifts given by students’ families – the baskets were over flowing with sugar, soap, eggs, vegetables, fruit, cloth, salt, flour, rice and even live chickens. After the school community celebration, students took the gifts to local orphanages and hospitals.

Children distribute gifts in local hospital

The School of St Jude aims to fight poverty through education. It does this in a material way by providing excellent education to the poorest children. It also teaches that a generous spirit does not require material wealth.

May your generous spirit move you to lend your support to the School of St Jude.