Most of you met Mr. Sulle when you visited, and some of you may have met Mr. Edward. These two are not only caring upper grade teachers, they have gone above and beyond in the last three months in their efforts to get a group of graduating students enrolled in secondary boarding schools.
We were so happy to receive sponsorships for 16 students, three at the Tumaini STEM secondary school and the other 13 at four Karatu public boarding schools. But it wasn’t easy getting them placed.
Challenges sprang up all along the way, and the biggest was saved to the last. But these two heroes saved the day!
First off, we were slow developing this program, and some sponsorships arrived at the last minute. Mr. Sulle was the point man in Tloma. He spent a lot of time referring potential donors to Winona, visiting the students and their families, answering questions and explaining what we thought would happen but not knowing exactly because we were all new to the process. After a short while, he was joined by Rodrick Edward who is helping Mr. Sulle and temporarily serving as the local bookkeeper to track all expenses. Winona, who lives in Utah, USA, is the ‘banker’, communicating with the sponsors, collecting funds, and dispersing those funds to Tloma as needed for school registration and the purchasing of supplies.
In Tanzania, the government grades the final exam then begins to assign the students to various schools. By the time we received sponsorships and requests were made to the district school offices to place those 13 students in boarding schools, most of the boarding rooms had already been assigned. We ended up with only six students assigned to female rooms. That wouldn’t have been too bad if three of those assigned students weren’t boys! The remaining seven students had been assigned to day schools and would need to commute (walk) 90 minutes or more each way. That was not good news!
But both Mr. Sulle and Mr. Edward, assisted by a couple of school moms, moved into high gear to steamroll their way to success. After numerous direct contacts with the district offices and various boarding schools, they managed to get commitments that our students could take spaces that opened up when other students didn’t arrive by the deadline dates. Now, all 16 students are assigned to the boarding schools and attending classes! And the boys are in boys’ dorms!
But their job isn’t over. They will act as contacts for the students throughout the year and facilitate reports to sponsors. They also plan to set up a local support team of teachers and citizens to work with each student when they come home for holiday breaks to provide advice and/or to tutor students to avoid future frustration and dropout.
These young men are awesome representatives of the dedicated teachers at Tloma. Let them know you think they did a great job. Leave them a big ‘thank you’ on our Facebook Page.