Navy blue socks for 1740 busy feet

As I noted yesterday, navy blue socks are on St Jude's wish list this month. Actually, navy blue socks are on St Jude's wish list EVERY month – local socks are expensive and low quality. The School provides full uniform for students, and, as I noted earlier, these uniforms are symbols of pride in the local district.

Thanks to the generosity of one supporter, the School is able to help parents keep their child's uniform in good working order by employing a Sewing Lady to attend to daily repairs. In December, I told the story of how St Jude's came to have a Sewing Lady.

Today, thanks to Bill Pavey, who keeps me up to date with the Parkwood Rotary Club activities that support the school, I can share the story of John Tunnicliff, who has responded to the call for socks by packing his bags with bundles and bundles of navy blue socks.

John Tunnicliff, Gemma Sisia, students and socks!

John is the International Service Director at Parkwood Rotary Club, and he has been a great supporter of the School of St Jude from the early years. So, when he was planning a trip to visit the School this year, it was only natural that he stuffed his luggage with as many navy blue socks as he could.

It doesn't sound like much, does it? A few dozen pairs of socks for a country where one in five children die before the age of five. But this is just a small indicator of the great care and generosity of spirit of people like John Tunnicliff, who actively support powerful on-the-ground projects that are making a huge difference to individual lives, and to the future of one of the poorest countries in the world.

Hundreds of visitors go to St Jude's every year, and all of them carry something in their luggage. This is material support that speaks what is in their hearts – great loving care for people who struggle to give their children opportunity and prosperity.

We have so much. In this affluent country, we have so much.

To get your material goods circulating through the world, you can click on the ChipIn button at the top of this blog and send a few dollars to the School of St Jude. You can stick 'Rentabook' labels in your paperbacks so they can earn dollars for the best development project in Africa – the School of St Jude. Download them here.



Click here to subscribe to this blog.

Rent a Book Fundraiser

Here's my latest scheme! You can download this bookplate and stick it into any of your books. Then you lend the books, sell them, or give them away, and the books becomes a fundraiser for the School of St Jude.



Do you like this idea? Can you add these bookplates to your books? Go here to download the PDF file, then print it out and stick it into any of your books. [Right click the link and choose 'save as' to save the PDF file to your computer.]

Your borrowers can use the ChipIn widget on this blog to donate their book rental fees to the School of St Jude.

Get your books working for you! Better still – get them working to educate bright children from poor families in Tanzania.



Click here to subscribe to this blog.

Every day

Every year, every month, every day is a challenging new adventure at the School of St Jude. The remarkable thing is that this school is run by people who have never done this before. It is growing at such a rapid rate that Gemma and the staff stand in the face of unknowns every day.

The skills learnt in running a four classroom school a couple of years ago need to be extended and adapted to run the 30 classroom school that operates this year.

New classroom with desks and chairs ready for January 2007

Fortunately, Gemma has strong planning skills. Since starting the school, she has gradually built up the leadership team so that now, in 2007, she has little to do with day to day aspects of the academic side of the school. Every Wednesday she meets with staff and on Fridays she meets with the leaders of the school.
Other than that, the day-to-day running of the school is done by the leadership team.

2007 Leadership Team

From left we have Mr Nick (Head of Computers Department), Mr Koringo (Head of Mathematics), Sr Wanyaga (Head of Music, Art, Library, PE and RE), Sitting on the swing is the Academic Master of the entire school, Mr Nestory, and on his right is Miss Diana (Head of Kiswahili), Miss Belinda (Head of Science), Mr Sebastian (Head of Social Studies), Mr Peter (Deputy of the school), Mr Didas (Head of English), Miss Coletha (Head of the Jr School), Miss Husna (Assistant Academic Head) and squatting in the front is Mr Ben (Deputy of the school).

In the front of the picture are Mr George and Mr Rasul who are training to be leaders for the new campus at Usa River that will open in 2008. Gemma is thinking ahead so that the new campus will have the buildings and the staff to serve new classes.

Join the team of supporters and watch this amazing project grow from strength to strength. You can add your support by making a small donation through the Chipin donation tool at the top of the page. Or you can go to the School website to sponsor a child, a bus, a teacher, a computer, or anything else!



Click here to subscribe to this blog.

End of the month

It’s time to look at the bank account and decide what to donate. Some of my donations are set on automatic deduct, but I always like to to think about what I send to the School of St Jude. I have chosen not to sponsor a child because I think that others like to do that. So I usually send a general donation. Sometimes I nominate a bus or teacher or computer donation.

Thank you letters from kids at St Judes

I don’t really mind which one I nominate because all the money is used to run the school. I always get an email confirmation that the money has been received. And I read the School’s monthly newsletter online.

Every now and then an airmail letter arrives from the school and I find a charming thankyou letter written by the kids. It’s a simple one-line thankyou, decorated by drawings and stickers. Now we know why the kids love to receive stickers!

What we give comes back to us in the achievements of everyone connected with St Judes – the children, their parents, the teachers and supporters world-wide.

Michael Liubinskas, an Australian supporter, says,

I always had fun visiting St. Jude's and was proud of what Gemma and the team had been able to do in such a short time. The school is well-built and well-run, and will provide a great long-term benefit to the people of Tanzania. I'm glad to be a sponsor.

So, I would encourage you to find out more about this terrific project that is Fighting Poverty Through Education in northern Tanzania. If you would like to make a small donation, you can do that right here – just click on the Chipin button at the top of the page.

Watch the orange bar

Hey! It's nice to see the Chipin donation tool at work! Thanks Rob for starting it off, and you too Bill, for adding your bit. I'm curious to see how this progresses.



A growing project like St Judes relies on a solid foundation of sponsors and donors who can give hundreds of dollars. Major fundraising events like the 3peaks3weeks climb raised $100,000 for the school. It took 10 women more than a year to reach this target through lots of local events.

St Judes also appreciates the small amounts that can really add up. If you want to give just a little to the school as a one-off or an occasional donation, you can do it here.

And if you are hesitant to send money, they have an urgent need for plain navy socks!




Click here to subscribe to this blog.

Swimmers come home!

Tanzania is rarely in the news here in Australia. It is one of those invisible places are aren't quite real to the media. So I was interested to hear them mentioned on the radio news yesterday.

The report was about swimmers coming to the World Cup event in Melbourne. The Tanzanian Government is asking its swim team to sign guarantees, backed by family members, that they will return to Tanzania after the event.



This is a response to the actions of some competitors at the Commonwealth Games last year when about 40 competitors from four African countries, including Tanzania, 'went missing' and refused to return home. 36 of those 40 applied for refugee visas (32 were granted) while the other four simply melted in.

For me, this news report raised all kinds of questions about leaving your homeland and seeking a better life somewhere else. And the possibility of persecution at home sufficient to win a refugee visa in Australia. Some Hazari Afghans who came to Australia illegally on boats have been held for years in desert camps or on Pacific Islands and then forced to return to unstable homelands. Yet these African swimmers have not been locked up and most of their cases have been resolved within a year, mostly favourably.

Is this a reflection of Australia's great love for sport? I suppose it would be different for the Afghans if they were polo players!

In any case, it has me thinking about the entangled difficulties of life in the very poorest countries in the world.

I hope the Tanzanian swimmers enjoy their visit to the swimming World Cup and that their visit fosters wider awareness in Australian society of the common humanity that binds us all together.

Your assistance to the School of St Jude in Arusha, Tanzania, will help Fight Poverty Through Education. Here's a handy place where you can click and donate to the School.







Click here to subscribe to this blog.

Chipin donation tool

I have added the Chipin donation tool so that you, my interested readers, can contribute to specific projects at the school.

Addendum: I have taken it down till I get organised with Paypal. I thought it was 'go', but it wasn't. My apologies.

A couple of days later: I've sorted the issues with Paypal (they need professional Usability Testing for their website) and now Chipin is nestled resplendently at the top of the page. Have you added your mite?