Greetings From Tanzania

It has been great to be back at Arise School this week, albeit on my own. Unfortunately, Tanzania is still out of bounds for Sue following her illness earlier this year.

You will know from a recent blog of Eleanor’s efforts to raise money for electricity to be installed at Arise. I presented the children with the cheque Eleanor had presented to us telling the children that £2,200 equals 6,946,790 (yes, nearly 7 million) Tanzanian Shillings! Their faces were a picture at the thought of such an unimaginable amount of money! I also presented them with two computers that Eleanor’s father had kindly donated for the children’s use.

 

But first the staff need training. I was able to start the ball rolling and we hope that our two volunteers from Newcastle University, Ella and Emma, who arrive next week, will be able to move the training forward.

 

 

Once again, there has been so much to do in a short space of time. In particular, I wanted to see the progress on the footings of the 5th and 6th classrooms. Little did I know that, through local donations of materials and labour, the 7th classroom footings are now in place! Thanks to money already raised as a result of the “Buy a Block” Appeal, the walls are now beginning to go up. There is still a long way to go if we are to reach our target of finishing two more classrooms for January 2017 but, with your continued support, we believe that we can achieve this.

From the outset of our work in Tanzania, we have received much ongoing support from Rainhill Rotary Club. In the last two years, the St. Helens Rotary Club has also been tremendously supportive. Both Clubs have made it possible for us to do so much more with regard to building and development of Arise. One of the things that I wanted to do on this trip was to be able to strengthen the links we have already established with the Rotary Club in the local town of Moshi and to develop a link with the newer Machame Rotary Club located nearer to the school. I was able to meet with members of both Clubs and, with Frank, tell them about our future plans. Rom, the President of the Machame Rotary club, who had visited the school the previous day, announced to all the Rotary Clubs members that “all schools in Tanzania should aim as high as Arise Community School.”

What praise indeed!