FOSTER
Fransalian Organization for Social Transformation, Education and Renewal
Summary
HIV/AIDS is the greatest single threat to the United Republic of Tanzania's security and socio-economic development. It places an increasing burden on the country's resources through rising medical expenditures, absenteeism from work, and labour shortages resulting from morbidity and mortality. The epidemic is characterized by continuing stigma and denial at all levels, as well as by a lack of access to critical information and a reliable means of protection for those most at risk. The most tragic result, perhaps, is the number of orphans it has created. In Tanzania , there is an estimated nearly 2 million orphans, mostly from AIDS (Ref. Government data).
Other challenges facing Tanzania include its high prevalence of poverty, malnutrition, lack of education, and inappropriate care of its children. The quality of education and health care in Tanzania remains low, while community organization for maternal and child healthcare, universal education, adolescent support and care of the most vulnerable children is disintegrating. To date, 3 million seven to 13-year-olds are not in school. There is progressive exclusion and marginalization of adolescents and the most vulnerable children from basic family and community support.
This project proposes to build the second phase of the primary school for the poor children in Tabora , Tanzania . The total cost of the school building and its furnishings is US $ 111,000. It is a single story building, which we plan to construct in single phase.
Statement of Need
Tabora is one of the most illiterate regions in Tanzania . The educational system in Tabora , Tanzania needs to be improved. This is due to poorly managed schools and a lack of investments in school buildings, personal and equipment. Classrooms with more than one hundred children and an absent teacher are very common. At present, the boys of the S.F.S. Children’s Rehabilitation Center in Ipuli, Tabora , Tanzania go to three different local governmental schools.
While many organizations and external support are leaving Tabora, the region becomes less and less developed compared to other regions. Many children do not attend school. Almost sixty-five percent of the children of Ipuli do not attend any school whatsoever.
They do not know how to write or read and they miss an education in behaviour, awareness of big issues such as HIV/AIDS, and responsibility.
| Place | # of children (5-15 years) |
# of schools | # of teachers | # of students | % Attending school |
| Tabora Municipal | 56,632 | 65 | 851 | 37,310 | 65.9 |
| Ipuli | 4,367 | 2 | 41 | 1,589 | 36.4 |
The Tabora region is centrally located in Tanzania . Its capital is Tabora town with 210,000 inhabitants. As a junction of railways, many children coming from Mwanza, Kigoma, Dodoma , and Mpanda arrive by train in Tabora, the end of their journey. They leave their native village hoping to find work or a home in Tabora, but end up out on the streets.
In Tabora and the nearby surrounding area, there are about 700 to 1,000 children living in the streets. Most of these children are between 5 and 15 years old. Fifty percent of the children do not have living parents, 30% have abandoned by their parents, and 20% have run away from home.
The main cause of the rapidly increasing number of street children in Tabora is AIDS. As everywhere in East Africa , AIDS is rapidly spreading in Tabora. One of the consequences is a large number of orphans who are often left without a home. Most of these children have relatives, but in most cases their extended families do not have the financial means to care for them properly. In the long run, these children end up out on the streets.
Illegitimate children are another important abandoned group. As infants, these children are raised by their unmarried mothers. When their mother gets married later on, however, and moves to another place with her new partner, she often leaves her child behind with her family. In most cases, the children end up with their grandparents. It is not unusual that one grandparent takes care of five or more grandchildren. The family normally cannot continue to support these children. The children are either sent away or exploited, so that in the end the children will run away.
There is also an increasingly large group of children who run away from their maternal and paternal parents’ homes because they are being ill-treated, or because the living conditions at home are so bad due to extreme poverty that these children think, initially, that they can do better elsewhere.
In Tabora town, most of the street children are found in close proximity to the railway station and the market place. In the railway station, the children sleep in empty train wagons. During the day they sell cigarettes, sweets, ground nuts, and soft drinks to travelers arriving and departing in and around the station. They often help the travelers with their luggage in exchange for a small amount of money. Oftentimes the younger children are seen begging in the station and in the surrounding streets.
In the marketplace, the children sleep in empty carts left behind or under the canopy of one of the small shops. During the day, they help people carry their merchandise or work for the shopkeepers who pay them for cleaning their shops or loading or unloading goods. Others hang around all day waiting for a chance to steal from the shops or from the parked cars along the market street.
If they do not earn enough to fill their stomachs, they wander the streets in search of food. They look in the rubbish, beg for leftovers at restaurants, or pick up discarded food off the streets. Most of these children are malnourished. A lot of them have never been to school or received any form of education.
As the children desperately try to satisfy their primary needs relying solely on their own initiatives, they pose an easy target for criminals who employ them for delinquent behaviours such as petty theft, prostitution, or drug trafficking.
The SFS Children’s Rehabilitation Center was initiated by the Missionaries of St Francis de Sales ( MSFS ) as a center for the rehabilitation and education of street children, children orphaned by HIV/AIDS, and impoverished children who either have no one to take care of them or who have nowhere to go. The project is owned and administrated by the MSFS . It began in early 2002 and officially opened in August 2002. It is the only project of its kind in the region of Tabora. The only other organization in Tabora caring for children is The Missionaries of Charity, who cares for children up to five years of age.
The SFS Center currently cares for thirty five children, who are provided the basic necessities of shelter, food, clothing, and medical care. In addition, these children are provided, when they are ready, educational instruction, counseling, opportunities to participate in sports and arts activities, and various other programs to help them in developing their personal human life skills.
The SFS Center also serves nearly 200 orphans or single parent children in the nearby villages of Ipuli, Itaga, and Igambilo. These children are provided with clothing, medical care, books, and any other supplies or items needed to assist them in attending school.
The center is situated in a suburb of Tabora town about 4 kilometers from the town center. The buildings have been provided by the Archbishop of Tabora, in what was formerly a diocesan hospital. The center consists of two separate buildings. The children stay in one building and staff is accommodated in the other. In the children’s building, there are three bedrooms with space for thirty children. The children sleep in bunk beds under mosquito nets. In the building there are three classrooms containing a black board, desks and benches. Next to the classroom there is a teacher’s room where books and school equipment are stored. There is also a kitchen and a storeroom. Meals are taken in the adjoining refectory. There are sanitary facilities on the property, consisting of three showers and six toilets and a playground and large vegetable and fruit garden which provides food for the children and staff.
The mission of the SFS Children’s Rehabilitation Center is the reintegration of these children into a normal societal life by meeting their primary needs and by stimulating their mental, physical, intellectual, and social development. This project addresses the need for a school for these children.
Project Description
Sensing the urgency of the situation we built 8 class rooms and four offices and began a school on
The goal of this project is to provide a high quality education to impoverished children who have been deprived of proper parental care. These children are the project’s target group. To achieve the project’s goal the MSFS plan to construct a primary school with hostel facilities.
Tabora, one of the most illiterate regions in the country, will be greatly assisted by this endeavor. The school will play a vital role in the intellectual development of the society.
The project’s objectives are:
- Construction of the second phase of the primary school.
- To provide primary school age children a high-quality education in a wholesome learning environment.
- Provide for the most primary needs of these children.
- To stimulate the intellectual development of these children.
- To stimulate a sense of responsibility and independence in these children.
- To provide council and assist the children mentally and emotionally.
- To promote an atmosphere of respect and tolerance for all children.
- To reunite the children with their families, whenever possible.
The project will provide dormitory housing for the students. For these children, it will mean a roof over their heads, living accommodations in a building with a bedroom and sanitary facilities. Each child will receive clothing and three balanced meals a day. The center and school will provide each child a safe environment with clear daily structure and the necessary affection and positive confirmation required for healthy development. The children will also be offered medical care, including a doctor’s consultation, medicines and hospitalization, if necessary, with a doctor available for routine illnesses or emergency cases at all times.
The children will be giving tutoring assistance in the evening when doing their homework. The project will provide students with school uniforms, books, and needed school supplies.
Children at the school will be given daily tasks that may include cooking, cleaning, sweeping, washing clothes, and working in the garden. Care will be taken to assign tasks only within the capacity of a child and according to his or her age. The overall aim of the project is to prepare children for an independent life as an adult.
This project proposes to accomplish these stated objectives by the construction of the primary school in Ipuli village of the Tabora municipality of Tanzania . The municipality has allotted the Missionaries of St. Francis de Sales a 60-acre plot of land for the school and adjoining facilities.
The school will provide classroom instruction for children from Montessori to class seven. The curriculum will follow the syllabus of the Tanzanian Ministry of Education. Classes taught will include English, Kiswahili, mathematics, geography, biology and physical science, history, and religious education. Each grade will accommodate up to fifty students.
The school will employ thirtyfive full-time teachers. The teachers will be recruited from the Teachers Training Colleges of Tabora, Dodoma and Mwanza. We may also have a sister congregation to assist us in the administration of the school as well as girls departments of the rehabilitation programme. Teachers’ salaries will be paid from school tuition fees. Non-teaching support staff will include an accountant and a secretary. Other staff will include two cooks, a custodian, nurse, and two security guards.
Project evaluation will be based initially upon the results of detailed school records. The number of students attending the school and the number of graduates will be recorded. The initial success of the project will be measured by these parameters. After graduation, graduates of the school will be monitored for a five-year period. Personal visits to students’ homes or surveys will be used, as appropriate, to determine whether the primary school graduates have continued their education at either secondary or vocational schools. The school’s ultimate success will be measured by its impact on the lives of the children receiving their primary school education at the school.