Mbokomu Primary School

 

Nearly 40% of the rural population in Tanzania are currently living below the poverty line, with few rural households having access to safe drinking water, primary education and medical treatment. For this reason, we have established our Mbokomu School development Programme which commenced mid 2007.

 

Mbokomu School

 

Mbokomu School is in the small village of Korini Kusini (3000 inhabitants), located on the outskirts of Moshi town at the foothills of Mount Kilimanjaro in Northern Tanzania. It is a mixed day school with 803 students ranging from the ages of 5-16 years and 23 teachers.

 

The majority of students come from Korini Kusini and other surrounding villages and many children have to walk over 20 km a day just to attend school.

 

Our main objective is to improve the schools existing facilities by renovating rundown and dilapidated classrooms as well as building new facilities for the children so that they can enjoy a safe and stimulating educational environment.

 

At the moment, many of the school classrooms are in such poor condition or do not have enough desks and chairs that children are taught outside under the shade of trees. This, together with poor flooring in existing classrooms, is significantly contributing to the incidences of Jiggers (a flea-borne infection). This parasitic flea lives in soil and sand and will burrow into bare feet to lay eggs that eventually hatch into painful parasites. The resultant infection leads to expensive medical bills and inevitable loss of study time for children.

 

Life is made even harder during the rainy seasons as torrential downpours contribute to large scale soil erosion and flooding of the school grounds, making it very difficult to move around and creating breeding areas for waterborne infections.

 

Additionally, the school canteen is in dire need of renovation and this was one of our first projects in 2007.

 

 

The school canteen at Mbokomu

 

Inside the school canteen at Mbokomu

 

 

Progress so far

 

How you can help

Your valuable contribution will support development and maintenance projects within the school and subsequently improve the living standards of the surrounding community.

 

Forthcoming projects will include:

 

• Reconstruction and renovation of 14 derelict classrooms(to include appropriate concrete flooring)
• Building a new school canteen
• Building enough school desks to accommodate 800 pupils
• Construction of sports ground and facilities
• Improving water catchments
• Secure a permanent water supply closer to the school
• Repairing roofs and gutters
• Installing appropriate drainage systems to reduce flooding during rainy seasons
• Establishing a tree nursery
• Improving security around the school by fencing and tree planting around the periphery of the school grounds
• Providing teaching assistance
• Increasing instructional materials including text books, exercise books, stationary and other instructional materials.