A LETTER FROM A TANZANIAN STUDENT

My name is Fatuma Msechu, a disabled student from Jangwani Girls Secondary School.

Aid from Haukipudas Secondary School has made my life very comfortable here at school.

I had paid for my school fees, bought some stationery for academic purpose and obtained my personal needs. Also your money has made me getting the bus fare for going home during holidays and coming back to school.

Financially I am very poor. I can’t even afford getting my basic needs; some times I have been asking help from the headmistress and Mr. BOSCO who have been very kind to me now and then.

I had no idea when Mr. BOSCO advised me to look for the financial Aid from people whom I don’t know and I have never met before but Mr. BOSCO is a very good man. He made all his personal effort to find me sponsors and finally he gave me the good news that Madam Anja from Haukipudas Secondary School in Finland has agreed to work for my problem finding me sponsorship from her school. I was very happy though it was just like a day dream to me till I got the money Euro 273 from your school. That is the day when my dream became true.

You have really made me to be sure that now I can finish my form IV studies this year as I cleared all the debts by paying the school fees and other necessary contributions for all previous three years. Thus I am kindly asking you to help me again for only this final year of my studies so that I can complete my studies in October this year.

Mr. BOSCO told me that you are coming next year. I really welcome you all to our country and I am expecting to meet you here at school as I am sure I might come back for further studies at this school.

Yours,

Fatuma

OFFICIAL REPORT FROM TANZANIA

A BRIEF REPORT ON FINANCIAL AID FROM HAUKIPUDAS SECONDARY SCHOOL FINLAND

Introduction:
This report presents a brief review and appraisal on the progress of the relationship between Jangwani Secondary school in Tanzania and Haukipudas Secondary school in Finland. Jangwani secondary school is among the members of the UNESCO Associated Schools Project Network in the country; coordinated by UNESCO National Commission of The United Republic of Tanzania.

Through Jangwani Secondary School’s membership, the UNESCO National Commission managed to link and establish strong friendship ties between Jangwani and Haukipudas secondary schools. Under this mutual relationship, Jangwani secondary school has managed to receive a total of Euro 1073 from its sister school (HAUKIPUDAS) which was sent through UNESCO National Commission Office. The amount is for financial and technical support to the school. The money was used as follows:

Expenditure:
The money under review was spent as follows:

Euro 800/= equals to Tshs.1, 388,990/96 for buying Hard Disks. The school managed to buy 20 pieces of IDE 40 GB Hard Disks from RAAM COMPUTERS LTD for Tshs.1,100,000/= and installed them in the school computers. The installation cost was Tshs.200, 000/=. Euro 273/= equals Tshs.455,277/68 was Financial support to the form three Disabled student Fatuma Msechu for payment of school fees, Transport (on holidays) and pocket money.

Outcome:
All the installed computers are currently working and are in access to both students and staff members as per school schedule. Furthermore, Fatuma Msechu, the disabled student is in form four this year and is expected to complete her ordinary level studies in November, 2011. She greatly enjoys the financial support and has expressed her appreciation.

In general the achievement attained through this relationship is highly appreciated by the school community, UNESCO National Commission, the government and the society at large. There have been collective efforts by all stake holders who work tirelessly at the school level i.e. Jangwani and Haukipudas; the governments of the two countries and UNESCO, for sustainable development of young generation.

We are greatly indebted by this kind deed and we pray that our friendship continues. Welcome to our beautiful country, Tanzania in 2012.

Find enclosed herewith, the receipts of the expenditure

Hope to see you soon.

Faithfully yours,

Headmistress

A letter from Ms Dorice Mazengo

A few weeks ago our school in Haukipudas had the pleasure of widening our network. A former student of Jangwani Secondary School, Ms Dorice Mazengo is currently studying in Finland.

Ms Mazengo wrote us a letter with some information of herself and also of her former school. Here are some main points of her letter:

“In short I studied at Jangwani from January 2000 to February 2006. That was ordinary and advanced level of secondary education. After that I joined institute of social work from September 2006. I was taking Bachelor Degree in Human Resource Management, but I couldn’t finish because of the school fees. Then I was at home and later one of my uncles who was here (Finland), took me here for studying. I came to start school again. That was in 2008. Now I am a student at Savonia ammmattikorkeakoulu taking bachelor degree in Industrial management 3rd year.

I am too an orphan and the first born with one younger sister and two brothers who are still in Tanzania.

I am happy to hear of such kind of program because I am interested too in helping people in either way, and I promise to do as much as I can to make these dreams come true.

The school is very old although some renovation has been done. It has also a big compound with a lot of activities going on like classrooms, library, laboratories (for physics, chemistry, biology and nutrition) and a computer room. There are dormitories, staff´s and teacher’s offices, kitchen for cookeries, needle work room, and a kiosk.

I am not sure exactly how big it is but it’s quite a big school and it has more than 1200 students including disabled students. It has two shift classes, ie morning and afternoon shift. That is because of insufficient number of class rooms. There are seven streams of studies, ie P,Q,R,S,X,Y & Z. P is for pure science, Q for science and needle work, R for science and cookery ,S for art and cookery, X for economics and bookkeeping, Y for art and needle work and Z for pure art. This means divisions of the classes. Computer course was optional and it had to be paid out of the school fees. This means not all students are able to attend the class. Jangwani is a government school but all students have to pay school fees and some other school contributions. The age of the students ranges between 14-22 years, and it is a popular school because it is at the center and takes students who are doing well in studies (talented).

In my opinion the school needs a hall for meeting, dormitories are too small, a nice and big library with necessary facilities like books, etc would be necessary. Computers and the Internet connection should be in the library and free for students. Also there are a lot of students who need help to continue their studies.

As far as I know, there are some art activities and sports too but we don’t take it much. Students are engaged in netball, dance, poems, singing and other. We used to arrange some concerts among students and participate in school celebrations.

Regards,

Dorice”

-by AMO

Hardware is being installed

A couple of weeks ago I received this email from Mr Bosco from Jangwani Secondary School in Tanzania:

"I am kindly sending this thankyou note to you and your students for the support you have given us. we have bought 20 Hard Disks for our computers and we have alreadys read installed the computer ready for use thankyou so much.

My regards to your students.

Yours,
John"

Later I was informed by Mrs Mwinula that the school had installed the disks on 17 computers so far. In the process they had discovered that three PCs had some problems and were looking for the solution to be able to install the remaining three.

This was good news - we're happy to know our students' donation is well spent!

-by AMO

ASSISTING JANGWANI GIRL SCHOOL

The students of Haukipudas wanted to share their wealth and donated 800€ for new hard drives to our partner school in Dar es Salaam in the last school year. They worked for a day and gave their salary for a campaign organized by the student council. They will continue assisting Jangwani Secondary School in the future too. The next task is to establish an Internet connection for the use of students there.

Our students wanted to carry on with our long-lasting tradition of assisting students in need. This time they wanted to help their peer in Tanzania. Jangwani chose a student, a disabled orphan, who needed assistance and our students donated small sums of money from their own pockets to sponsor this girl. In May 2010 I was happy to transfer over 270€ to be used for her education.

Thanks to the UNESCO office in Tanzania and Ms Modester Mwinula in particular, we can be assured the money will be put in good use.

-by AMO

UNESCO WEEK

In December 2009 we had a special theme week in our school. The goal was to make sure our students truly understand what it means to be a UNESCO - school and to promote the guiding principles of UNESCO.

Thus we had something special laid out for each day of the week, naturally somehow related to UNESCO themes. We saw animated films that a group of students had made, opened an art exhibition presenting art works not only made by our students but also from our partner school Medina High School, USA. The UNESCO themes were also dealt with in ordinary lessons and in the end of the week there was a quiz for all students.

The highlight of the week was the Tanzanian day on Dec 9th. We had the privilege of having five most interesting guests informing and entertaining us.

Henry Shoma

Miriam Attias

















Menard and Deogratius

Kai Tirkkonen











We had two dancers/musicians from Tampere, Menard and Deogratius Mponda, a young Tanzanian student Henry Happy Shoma from Oulu, a Red Cross worker Miriam Attias from Oulu and a photographer Kai Tirkkonen from Haukipudas.

Our visitors attended classes in the morning sharing their knowledge about Tanzania and Africa in general. Later that day we had workshops in which we learnt even more about their previous homecountry and the work of Red Cross. An absolutely fabulous - and sweaty - experience was to learn an African dance and a song to it. After getting first hand taste of this kind of self expression, we saw a breathtaking show with singing, drums and dancing. The performers' skills literally filled us with awe and admiration. Finally we listened to a presentation and saw fantastic photographs taken in the deepest Tanzania, among the Makonde tribe. The tribe makes sculptures out of ebony and Mr Tirkkonen imports them to help these poor craftsmen. We got to admire these beautiful pieces of art too.

The day was a great success and we want to thank all our guests from the bottom of our hearts!

-by AMO

Writing on Finland

Another group of students wrote papers on Finnish nature and our heritage. You can find them in the comments - section.
- Anja Moilanen