You will be interested in the latest news from Vijaliwa Vingi. It’s turning out to be an exciting year!
First of all, we now have 22 kids in the residential program, and 70 in our school. Various government agencies keep bringing us kids, in one case from 400 kilometres away. We take this as a sort of recognition that we do provide good care, and maybe the best in Tanzania. Ten of our residential kids are enrolled in our school (which currently runs from nursery school to Grade 2). The rest are in state schools according to their ages.
The school is growing. We have now built four larger-than-standard-size classrooms, with big windows, and nonskid tile floors. They are bright and airy, and government officials say they are the best classrooms in the entire district. Besides Grade 1 and Grade 2, we have two nursery school classes, and one kindergarten, from two-year-olds to seven-year-olds. Our last year’s oldest kindergarten kids graduated into Grade 1, and have done extremely well in our exams (in English) and also finished in the top ten in the local government school’s exams (in Swahili). Our Grade two class will become Grade three in January. And so on.
You will recall that we are teaching in both languages. It’s a delight to discover even our youngest kids playing in both Swahili and English, and then they address Lynda (aka ‘Bibi', or 'Mama Lynda') in English. Our teaching staff numbers six, all Tanzanians with appropriate certification. We are using the Tanzanian curriculum and also include topics drawn from the British Columbia curriculum. Lynda is spending quite a lot of her time in teacher training, with particular emphasis on Positive Discipline and the school mantras of Honesty, Respect, and Co-operation.
Our two most recently constructed classrooms are in fact the first floor of an eventual two-storey building. It will have rooms on the second floor (with private western-style bathrooms) which can be used for either offices or volunteer accommodation (we have introduced the Murphy bed to Tanzania). The future second floor will have shaded verandahs which will both catch the breeze and have a nice view out over the valley. But for the moment, classrooms are our priority.
The latest good news is that through the generosity of a major donor, we will now be able to start building a third set of two classrooms, again to be the first floor of an eventual two storey building. So we are assured that our building program can continue to keep up with the growth of the children. In fact, there are getting to be a lot of people (kids and staff) around in the middle of the day! However, we’ve managed to construct a new dining hall. Somehow.
Also on the construction side: we are getting mains electricity! Up to now, we have managed with a variety of solar installations, which provide some lighting and power to charge batteries, but not much else. But what started as a local rumour - that power was coming to our village - has in fact ended up to be true!
Lynda returns to Tanzania this week. She will be accompanied by Galiano Island volunteer Nelia Tierney, a certificated counsellor. They plan to present a series of workshops on Community Sustainable Development to staff, Board members, and parents. This will include topics pertaining to child care, positive role modeling, and ethical and cultural practices. Presented in both English and Swahili!
Finally a word about our finances. You will probably recall that our long term financial plan called for our residential program, which many of you have supported for many years, to be financed by our school after about five years. Well, so far so good. The school, in these very early stages of development, is close to breaking even financially. We must credit our staff and management with this accomplishment. However, with expected growth in enrolment, we are going in the right direction.
And our sincere thanks to you all for your continuing support. We couldn’t do this without you.
Patrick Brown
Chair, CanaDares
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