Free rice

I enjoy the various websites where you click a button and a sponsor makes a donation to a needy cause. I seem to have contributed to several over the years.



Free rice is the latest incarnation. It's a bit addictive because it is set up as a word quiz. Every time you get a word right, a sponsor donates to the UN World Food Program.

Give it a go, and add your bit. How far can you get in the quiz? I got to level 43, but there were a few guesses in there.

Great for trivia fans too.

General budget support

In Tanzania aid accounts for more than 40% of the national budget. Several European countries have been sending their aid money straight into the government’s treasury and not for specific projects. The approach is called ’general budget support’. Proponents of that system say that it forces the government to be accountable to its people and also argue it’s the only way to phase out aid dependence in countries like Tanzania. However, they also advocate that taxes must be raised so they can take over from aid as financing.

Allison Dempster on Africa Files reviews the case for this kind of aid to Tanzania.

Donors and sponsors to the School of St Jude can tie their funds to something specific by sponsoring a child or a bus or a classroom, or they can donate to general funds and give the school administrators the flexibility to apply the funds where needed most.

Donor countries like Sweden and Norway are helping Tanzania grow its administrative capacities by donating to general budget support which Allison describes as

To hear its fans describe it, budget support is the Tom Hanks of foreign aid concepts - ordinary looking, but turns in solid performance most of the time. A no-name’brand approach to international aid, if
you will.

Interesting, yes?

Giving and receiving

Here is one way that the School of St Jude acknowledges our donations.

Isn't that colourful? Last month we opted to donate to the boarding school, and ticked the 'Industrial Cooker' option. So I smiled to receive this certificate by email.

We send a donation each month, and often choose the 'general donation' option. Here is what the School says about general donations.

The child sponsorship schemes help to run the school, but it is only thanks to donations that we have been able to expand the capital infrastructure of the school so as to be able to keep up with the exploding enrolment.

Larger donations can buy things outright, and smaller donations can go towards the full purchase of specific items such as generators or a photocopier.

The School has simplified the options for making donations online. Previously we have used the direct bank transfer option, but now we find it simplest to use the Paypal option and use our credit card.

I'm sure you'll find that it is an easy process. Give it ago – at the School of St Jude.

A ship that is sailing well

"Everyone loves to be on a ship that is sailing well," says Gemma Sisia, and it is so true! Who wants to be on a rickety leaky boat with a clueless captain?

Gemma is grateful for all the people who are coming onboard the good ship St Jude, and she is especially grateful to those people who helped build the ship, right back at the beginning.

I'll never forget that my local Rotary Club gave it support when the probability of it failing was quite high.

Gemma is featured in the latest issue of Rotary Down Under, June 2007.

Gemma Sisia

In the article, she spells out the full extent of the current building program on two campuses. In the next six months she is building 26 classrooms, two food halls, boarding accommodation for 800 children, three staff rooms, four computer labs, toilets, a water tower and water tanks. All up, it is millions of dollars of investment. She has $60,000 in the bank – so money is needed!

The school sponsorship program attracts lots of people who want to sponsor a child, but the building works for a new high school to serve the kids in future years needs people who are prepared to pay for 'invisible' things like computer cable, cement, steel and timber.

Gemma says,

I've never had to turn a sponsorship away, but it is getting close.

I have a photo I keep in my wallet of a parent who has just seen her child in uniform for the first time. When times are getting really bad, I pull that out and it puts things in perspective.

Wearing the St Jude's uniform has a big reputation in our area now. It basically says you're going to have a good life. Your life is going to be different.

If you are able to help with a little, or a lot!, check out the Current Campaign page on the School of St Jude website. Why not invite some friends to afternoon tea and invite them to contribute $10 each?

Everyone wants to see this ship make a safe trip across difficult waters. The destination is a land of hope for hundreds of bright children.

What do you think? Leave a comment and share your thoughts.

The Big Sleepover – weekday boarding school

It’s underway, and you’re invited! Work is starting on the weekday boarding facilities for the older kids who live a long way from the school. The boarding school will provide bunk bed dormitories, living/dining/study areas, bathrooms, and play areas.

Instead of sharing a mattress in a two room home,

the kids will have their own bed and mosquito net.

Instead of studying by candle or lamp in homes with no electricity,

the kids will have well-lit study areas with some computers.

Instead of walking an hour to the bus for the long ride to school, they will have a five minute walk to school.

And they will go home at weekends, so their loving families won’t lose contact with these bright children who are on the way to an amazing future with opportunities every parent dreams about.

How can you join The Big Sleepover? Well, the school has prepared a number of sponsorship packages shown in the following picture.




Please email Gemma – schoolofstjude@habari.co.tz – if there is a package/s you are willing to support. She will make sure you get lots feedback and thanks.




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Therapeutic giving

Yes, helping others makes you feel better. So much so, that some psychologists are treating depression with programs that include an element of 'good works' that benefit others.

In our material culture, there are so many pressures and influences that lead us to think of ourselves and to get rewards from having more stuff. We are seeing a bit of a turnaround in movements that encourage people to stop buying stuff, or make do with what they've got, or even cook more slowly and take time to enjoy mealtimes.

But mostly, we're fairly well self-obsessed.

A couple of days ago I deplored Australia's low level of foreign aid that falls short of promises the government has made. And on Monday, I blogged about the generosity of Australians. Well, an article in today's Sydney Morning Herald has me re-thinking. The article, Treasurer passes charity test that many of us fail, compares the government overseas aid with Australian's private giving to overseas causes. They say,

Australian Council for International Development, estimates the community gave almost $700 million to overseas aid last year, four times less than what the Federal Government spent on development assistance.

In Australia, voluntary giving to overseas aid is about one-eighth of the total $7.7 billion given by individuals in 2005. The $7.7 billion is the equivalent of 0.68% of gross national product.

I'm not quite sure that this evidence is enough to support the headline that the Treasurer passes the charity test. Especially when the government continues to fall so far short on its promise to give 0.7% – we're only halfway there and creeping forward in miniscule increments.

So, I'm going to persevere. I'll continue to use less in my own life and try to take time every day to consider the needs of others. This blog is one of the ways that I keep my eye on the ball.

Chipin donation for water tanks

Thank you, thank you to everyone who contributed towards the $120 for water tanks at the School of St Jude using the ChipIn donation tool on this website. The money has been forwarded to the School and I’ll post pictures of the new water resources when I get them – maybe after our September visit, so don’t go holding your breath!

Reward yourself!

Go on, do it now. Instant gratification guaranteed. Give a few dollars to the School of St Jude and see how good it makes you feel.

Two recent studies by psychologists used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to visualize the brain's activity while people played computer games that enabled them to earn money for real-life charities.



One study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, involved about 20 people, each of whom had the potential to walk away with a pot of $128. They were also given a separate pool of funds, which they could choose to distribute to a variety of charities. A computer presented each charity to the subjects in series, and gave them the option to donate, to oppose donation, or to receive a payoff, adding money to the pot. Sometimes, the decision to donate or oppose was costly, calling for subjects to take money out of the pot.

It turned out that a similar pattern of brain activity was seen when subjects chose either to donate or take a payoff. Both types of decisions were associated with heightened activity in parts of the midbrain, a region deep in the brain that is known to be involved in primal desires (such as food and sex) and the satisfaction of them.

This result provides the first evidence that the "joy of giving" has an anatomical basis in the brain – surprisingly, one that is shared with selfish longings and rewards.

So, now we have the evidence – reward yourself by using the ChipIn tool on this website to support the School of St Jude as it educates bright children in one of the world’s poorest countries.

Too many good causes

What triggers us to help a worthwhile cause? How do we choose which cause to help? I often notice that people support a cause because of a personal connection. A sister has breast cancer, so they raise funds for the Cancer Council; their child has an accident, so they support the burns unit of the hospital. Mel Gibson gave $US1mill to his old school, NIDA.


I became interested in the School of St Jude after seeing the TV program ‘Australian Story’ featuring Gemma Sisia. This was an entirely new direction for me. I had never paid much attention to Africa because India has always been the country that caught my imagination. I travelled through India in my early 20s as I went overland Katmandu to London. I enjoy Indian culture, artefacts, music and spiritual writings. And India has been poor enough to call our assistance.

A few years ago, Ross Gittins, economics editor of the Sydney Morning Herald, wrote about the ‘Africanisation’ of poverty. This opened my eyes to the shifting landscape and I became more aware of Africa. Then the Millennium Development Goals were formulated and the picture became clearer for me. So, when I became ready to give in a more substantial way, it was Africa that called me. Clearly the need is greatest there.

I am filled with hope that severe poverty can be eliminated in my lifetime. Before the Industrial Revolution, most people in the world, including today’s developed countries, lived a survival existence of short lifespans, high infant mortality, low literacy, and chronic illness. Only one hundred years ago, the British soldiers who fought WWI were so markedly under-nourished that they were inches shorter than Australians soldiers.

We forget that our developed countries have travelled this same path only very recently. If it was possible for us, it can be possible for Africa. Tanzania is working on better governance and improved infrastructure. The Tanzanian government is pouring all the resources it can get hold of from its own taxes and from aid (official and private) into health, education and infrastructure.

Your assistance of the School of St Jude will help these bright children from the poorest families and also help the country as a whole as it climbs onto the first rung of the ladder to prosperity.



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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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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!



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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!




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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.







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Not shoes but socks

The School of St Jude gets as many things as possible from the local area in Northern Tanzania. For example, the school uniforms that are provided for all students are made locally.

However, there are a few essential items that are just not available in Tanzania, and durable navy blue socks are one of those essentials.


The School supplies each child with two pairs of navy blue socks as part of their uniform, and stocks are running low! In January, the School accepted an additional 187 students who needed new socks. And of course the 700 kids already in the school need replacements.

In the past, all the hundreds of pairs of socks provided by the School have been brought in by visitors from abroad.

If you think you could buy a few pairs of ankle or knee length PLAIN NAVY socks for kids between 7 and 13 yrs old then the School would be so grateful! OR, if you know anyone who works for a sock distributor, the School would be happy to buy some socks.

To send a batch of socks to the School, send them an email and they will put you in touch with someone who is planning to visit.

Check out the School’s wishlist to see the range of items that are hard to source locally.

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?

Got any library books to spare?

The School of St Jude will open a second school in 2008 and they are taking on another 170 new sponsored children each year. The current library will not be enough for the 850 students that we will have in 2007 ... and definitely not enough to fit out another two libraries!

Library books: seen on flickr

In a few weeks the Rotary Club of Rocklea will ship a container of goods to the school, as they have done with all the previous containers over the past 5 years.

The school is desperate for good library books and so if you can get the word out quickly then the container can have more books in it.

If you would like to help with books then you need to read the below guidelines:

1. Firstly - thank you
2. We ONLY need fiction and non-fiction primary and secondary library books. Class sets of English readers (any age) would also be good. Also stationery like good lead pencils, markers, chalk, exercise books, etc.
3. We cannot take encyclopedias, textbooks and teacher resource books as we get the encyclopedias on CD and we buy all textbooks etc here as our local curriculum is very specific.
4. Please only give library books for kids to borrow, and please think before giving them as we get many university level books or obsolete books that are of no use, even in Africa!
5. Please remember that our people here are very proud and we expect only the best for them as you would for your child.
6. If you have any nice, good, fun library books that children all over the world would love to read then please get them to the man below (please realise that Lloyd and his family and mates cannot pay for any cartage of books). The books must be delivered to the below address to be able to come to Africa.

Lloyd Fleming - PP The Rotary Club of Rocklea
154 McCullough St
Robertson, QLD, 4109

Fax: 07-3344-6851
Email: lff@uq.net.au

Postal address
PO Box 530
Sunnybank, QLD, 4109

................

If you are unable to find/organise books for this shipment, perhaps you could spread the word through libraries you know (your school, a local library) and start collecting books that could be sent in the next container shipment later in 2007.

What to give?

Living entirely within our own culture, we live by its standards of 'have' and 'have not'. In Australia, poverty is defined in relative terms. The bottom 10% of Australians are poor in relation to the other 90%. In relation to Africans, they live a life of plenty.

I am not in that bottom 10% and my children are grown so my expenses have dropped dramatically. Yet, even so, I have to remind myself that my surplus can be given away, it does not have to be accummulated or stored in case of bad times.

The children at St Jude's love to get stickers.

Charities ask for our help at every corner. Every day there is an approach from someone seeking donations for a very worthy cause. Door knock appeals, ribbon days, bear days, jeans days – all the gimmicks of modern marketing are used to catch our attention and appeal for our donation.

So, there I was, wanting to adjust the balance between my 'have' and others' 'have not'. I was drawn in the direction of supporting a single project. When I heard about the School of St Jude on 'Australian Story', there was no reason to hold back.

Hal, my husband, raised with me the subject of tithing – giving one-tenth of one's income. We decided that we would tithe to the School of St Jude. So, we send a donation each month (income permitting). This is not an automatic transfer, we have to decide to do it each month. That keeps our sense of purpose fresh.

I have to say that our lifestyle is not suffering though our retirement fund won't be as big as it would otherwise have been.

As well as giving a lump of money, we see things for the school all around us and we sometimes buy little things to send in the post. Like the stickers you see at the top of this post.

The school website lists some things that supporters can send for the children at the school.

For boys and girls:

Pens, lead pencils, colour pencils, markers, erasers, rulers and sharpeners always go well. A pencil-case, a dictionary, e.g. Nicholas Awde: Swahili-English, English-Swahili Practical Dictionary (Hippocrene). A school backpack or a library bag. Clothing? Families can get second hand clothing cheaply in the markets in town, but spare dark blue socks or something new is always a treat. Maybe a hat or a cap, a comb, a doll or stuffed animal, action figures or lego. The children absolutely love receiving stickers! If you send something to several children, please make sure the gift is divisible so as to not have arguments about who takes the present home.

For girls:

A skipping rope, inexpensive jewellery (e.g. from a $2-shop) or nail polish. If you send skirts or dresses, be aware that in this culture mini-skirts are not appropriate.

For boys:

A football, a pump for the football, juggling balls, frisbee.

Do not send DVDs, computer games or things that require electricity or batteries. Even though batteries are available here, we do not want the children to then have to ask their parents for batteries.

...........................

We encourage you to send a little of your surplus to the School of St Jude. Even an envelope of stickers in the mail will surprise and delight.