Cheti school fundraiser

Hey ! I’m Katie and I’m currently in Arusha, Tanzania on a volunteer placement teaching English with another volunteer Ines, from Chile, at a primary school called Cheti. The school is run by its incredibly inspiring and dedicated founder, Zuma. Sadly the school lacks the funds to acquire what the majority of us would consider the basic materials for education (and what I’ve learnt most of us have totally taken for granted !)To keep the school running Zuma uses his own money together with donations from volunteers and some funding from the Manchester based charity MadeWithHope. The school also supports widows who otherwise couldn’t afford education for their children, as well as a local orphanage and local children from families affected by HIV.

 

At Cheti 2, the primary school where we are placed, there are 96 pupils and only 2 teachers. The classes don’t have the textbooks that the children need to effectively learn maths, English or even to improve reading and writing in Swahili. Their education is instead very much determined by what they can copy down from the small black and white chalkboard. The resources and materials they have at this school are incredibly limited. The workbooks the children have (which are very scarce !) are often falling apart and some of the class don’t have erasers or pencil sharpeners. There are no books, pictures, posters or coloured materials to help them learn and it was quite sad to see that giving out a packet of coloured pencils caused such a fight that I had to take them back. I’ve attached photos onto my social media so you can see the classroom and learning materials yourself. The children are split between 4 classes, meaning that the only 2 teachers are constantly splitting their time between 2 large classes each. Combined with the lack of basic learning materials, this means that the lessons are often very repetitive and the pupils end up bored and fed up of the same thing…not exactly inspiring them to stay in education!

 

The textbooks that the school lack cost only £2.39 each, with an exercise book costing only 32p. Lots of learning materials such as pencils, picture books or even coloured information posters that would enable the children to learn much more efficiently all cost less than £3 here. In only a few days here we can see the difference that a few basic classroom essentials would make and we'd really like to help, and we would be very grateful if some of you would too. Ines and I have created a GoFundMe page so that if you are able to and if you’d like to support the school, we’d be so so thankful for donations of any amount! The exchange rate means that even £5 goes a huge way over here and can buy a couple of textbooks, many notebooks or contribute towards buying uniform for the children whose families can't afford it. We will use all donations to buy textbooks, learning materials and if possible, some games or footballs for the small play area where they could then play. Everything we raise goes straight into the school to help give the children the chance of a better education. Hopefully this is a way we can provide some longer term practical support for the school by supplying materials and resources that can be used for many years to come. Thank you if you’ve managed to read this far and if you are able to donate, thank you so so much, we are very appreciative of any support!

 

Katie x