After years of fundraising and some very generous support from all of you, Amahoro Secondary School opened its doors in January, 2015. The opening ceremony was a fabulous event with music, dancing, singing, speeches, laughing, honoring, and hugging!
But most importantly, there was a school opening!
In January 2015, school officially began. 75 first year secondary students joined their peers in classes with new and excited teachers. The surrounding community was thrilled to welcome this school to Mgaraganza. Children from the lakeside villages of Mtanga and Kigalie would now only walk one hour to school instead of two! The children of Mgaraganza village would only have to walk about 10-20 minutes, rather than an hour and fifteen minutes – as they did when attending school in Kagongo Village.
Through our joint efforts, we were able to make this happen! We constructed 16 rooms – 4 quads with space for classrooms, offices and laboratories. With the help of our rockstar donors Shelmina and Minaz, we also built state of the art latrines for the school.
Is the job done? No. There is still finishing work to be completed on some of the classrooms.
Is our job done? Yes. We believe in honoring our commitments, and so we have. The local and regional governments and the Ministry of Education have made commitments to continue the final touches on this school until it is ready to host not only Form 1 students, but cohorts of Form 2, Form 3, and Form 4.
Did Project Wezesha make any other commitments? Well … maybe.
In 2015 the Prime Minister of Tanzania mandated that all schools have laboratories to better support the development of education in STEM fields. In particular, all secondary schools must have labs to explore chemistry, biology and physics through hands-on practice. His goal is too ambitious and likely will not be realized – um, actually, it wasn’t realized. He wanted all ward secondary schools to be equipped with labs by May 2015. This might have been doable in certain developed and wealthy regions of the country (i.e., Dar es Salaam), but not in the majority of the country.
Project Wezesha plans to help the local government in Mgaraganza village as they construct labs to develop a community of creative and critical thinkers who can reach high school and pursue academic interests in any field they want – including science and technology!
So, what’s next?
We are closing this campaign and want to thank all of you for your fabulous support over the years. Our next steps … We invite you to continue supporting our efforts in Mgaraganza, Tanzania through our newly launched campaign: Provide Science Labs for Tanzania Secondary Schools.
‘Thank you’ is the best prayer that anyone could say. I say that one a lot. Thank you expresses extreme gratitude, humility, understanding. -Alice Walker