Habari! The classes have filled up with children’s smiling faces and the school term is already a month under way. We have many reasons to be excited from new students, a new teacher, wonderful donations, and new programming!

Lindsay-is our new teacher from The United States and here to teach our advanced cheka-cheya class. She is a very happy to return to Tanzania, after studying abroad in Zanzibar last year. It has been very helpful having her here and I’m looking forward to working with her.  

          On the last day of summer vacation while Lindsay and I were redecorating the school-we had four new students sign up! They are all wonderful additions and further helped secure the schools longevity. Not only did we increase our student body but two of them are girls-which has made Alyat, the former only girl, very happy! Due to the student’s different levels of English comprehension, we have separated the cheke-cheya into two classes. Sir Godfrey teaches the introduction cheke-cheya and Madame Lindsay teaches the advanced cheke-cheya. The introduction cheke-cheya is where the students learn the very basics of the English language, mathematics and good school behavior; while Lindsay goes more in-depth with these basic concepts. 

          The donations that Lindsay and I were able to bring back from North America are a blessing. All the reading books are wonderful and very easy to intermix into our curriculum. The whiteboards are used daily and the children love to do work on them!  All of us at the UHURU DAY TUITION Program are very happy and grateful for these donations. 

          Over the semester we will be introducing a dental hygiene program, school garden and compost. Lindsay and I both brought back toothbrushes and toothpaste from our dentists. To ensure the success of this program we have the students brush their teeth each day after lunch. The students really enjoy their toothbrushes and like to remind us all through lunch about brushing their teeth. Over the next few weeks the first steps will be taken to start our school garden. This will allow us to teach responsibility, organic gardening and lower our fresh food costs. The students will help from the beginning and feel ownership toward the garden. We plan on starting off with our leafy greens, as most other vegetables will not be ready this term. In addition to the school garden we will introduce composting to lower our waste, which is very difficult to get rid of.

      Lindsay is a experience ultimate frisbee player and has begun teaching our students the fundamentals of frisbee. The first lesson was to not call it a plate! Here are some lovely photos from our first frisbee lesson!!! 

  

I’m very much looking forward to the last term of school and all the possibilities it holds. Again, thank you very much for the donations that have been given to us! More to come in the following weeks! 

- Madame Kirsten