Tanzania Update
Do you remember…
If you are in P4-7, a member of staff, or a parent of a child that has left Ballyholme PS or Bangor Central IPS, you may remember that way back in 2016 you helped to raise nearly £6000 in Smarties tubes for the Campbell and McFerran families to take to Tanzania in East Africa. The families raised £15,000 in total to be solely used on projects either while they were there or to be continued after they had left.
We made three banners when we were there – one for each school
This is how the money was used:
NYANZA PRIMARY SCHOOL
- 2 teacher’s toilets (the teachers sometimes didn‘t come to school as they had no toilets)
- 2 concrete water tanks (limited clean drinking water at school from one small plastic tank)
- 2 new concrete classroom floors (floors were just mud)
- existing concrete floors patched (floors were broken, dusty and dirty)
- 2 classrooms plastered and painted
- simple sports equipment
- teachers’ plastic chairs
- exercise books, pencils, chalk, crayons, manilla card
| BEFORE | AFTER |
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| BEFORE | AFTER |
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We were also able to provide:
- 3 goat sheds and 3 goats
- 400 mosquito nets for schools’ malaria awareness day
- Moringa trees that produce highly nutritional powder
- money towards a house for a homeless lady
Hopefully the goat shed that we built is still standing!
This water tank that we helped to build will collect clean rain water to drink
While we were there we realised that it was all very good improving the school but the children were extremely hungry and had nothing to eat all day. We decided to use some of the money to set up a long-term Porridge Project where every child would receive a cup of maize porridge each day at school.
Two and a half years later…
The local community has funded and built a Porridge Project kitchen
where food is stored securely and kept dry during the rainy season
When we came home we encouraged people to help support this Porridge Project and we are delighted to report that because of it:
- The children’s health has improved
- Many more children are coming to school on a regular basis
- Hugely increasing numbers of children can now read, write and count by the age of 8/9
- Exam results have improved significantly
- The children can concentrate better and are eager to learn
Queuing for porridge
Parents and staff have planted a maize patch so that each child can have lunch twice a week
The parents are so delighted by the improvements that they have decided to pay for the school’s cook and guard and are buying cups to replace the broken ones and to cope with the increasing number of children at the school. When we were working at Nyanza there were 450 children at the school – now there are 640 children but still only 7 classrooms and 7 teachers! In some classrooms there are well over 100 children. Parents now come to school to hear about their children’s progress at school which is a new initiative.
There are many challenges ahead in that the kitchen needs finishing and also needs a proper floor. The doors and windows also need to be fixed and the walls need plastered as they will inevitably be washed away by the rains. It is also difficult to cope with the ever-increasing number of children joining the school. Next year the school will be connected to the main electricity supply and they hope to get a computer to be able to communicate by email and a photocopier to copy exam papers. Doing national exams really raises the standard of education in the school.
We are very excited and enthused by this news and want to continue to support Nyanza PS, especially because the community has grasped the vision and are prepared to be involved. We are also very aware that the project could easily have disintegrated if they had not taken ownership of it and we are extremely thankful for that. Thank-you to everyone in Bangor Central IPS and Ballyholme PS who raised money in 2016 and especially to those who continue to stand with us in supporting these folks who may seem a very long way away but who desperately need our help. In 2016 we learnt a song in school called “I Can Make a Difference” – we hope that you can see that your support is clearly making a difference in the lives of not only the school children but of the whole community in Nyanza village in Tanzania.
With heartfelt thanks,
The Campbell and McFerran Families
For support information email: teamtanzania2016@gmail.com
Nyanza Primary School
