Tanzania
Accelerated Education Programme for Ex Street Children
Globewise supports the Memkwa education program of Amani, a foundation that takes care of street children in a children's home in Moshi. This is a special (internally-taught) educational programme in which ex-street children can, in small classes, get used to going to school again. With intensive supervision, the boys and girls complete the primary school curriculum at double speed. This makes up for the educational disadvantage that the children have and, after a while, the children can go to a regular public primary school near the house. They re-join their peer group at school and have the same future opportunities as they do.
In the city of Arusha, street children are taken care of by this organization and everything is done to eventually return them to their families. Being able to grow up and go back to school in one's own environment is particularly important for e proper development of children. If necessary, the organization will provide the family with help with bringing up their children and, if necessary, offer financial support so that the family stays committed and the children continue to go to school.
Unfortunately for a small group of children it is not possible to return to their home or family and, therefore, these children are found a nice home in Moshi and are supervised throughout their study career until they can support themselves within the society.
Extra Teachers for Smaller Classes
Globewise supports the deployment of volunteer teachers engaged in regular education in Lower Moshi. Tanzania has, in the last few years, introduced compulsory education for all young people between the ages of 4 and 18. This is strictly monitored, which means that the number of children attending school has grown enormously in recently. Unfortunately ,however, the government is unable to provide sufficient financial resources to enable the hiring of additional teachers. This has led to overcrowded classrooms with sometimes as many as 110 students per class. As a result the FT Kilimanjaro Foundation has started a project to place newly graduated teachers, who often return to their native villages after completing their training, in their local village schools. Newly graduated teachers are also given the opportunity to gain work experience and help them increase their chances in the labour market. This creates a win / win situation with more motivated teachers in the classroom for a relatively modest fee and a good development trajectory for the new teachers. Due to the efforts of these teachers, class sizes can be reduced by splitting them up or teachers can be deployed to provide extra student support in, for example, mathematics.
