The St Monica Family girls started secondary school Kisarawe Girlstown in January 2022. The girls are cared for by their Mother-Sister, Sister Vaileth. The family is “happy, united, and cheerful family. The girls are sociable and cooperative with each other most of the time. They do and share many things in common” says Sister Vaileth.
Sister Vaileth speaks about the challenges many of these girls face, saying that they do their best at academic studies but many have a lot to learn in their first year. Sister Vaileth says that a big challenge is “learning, understanding, and speaking the English language because most of them start to learn this language only here and now. Many come from remote villages and speak only their native language.” Through the support of the family, the girls help one another to learn and encourage one another through these challenges.
When the children start school in Grade 7, they receive their school uniform, a bag, a pair of sports shoes and school shoes, set of colouring materials, some house clothes and sports uniform. They also receive books, board games, and other indoor game materials in their dormitories for leisure time. Every child has a general medical check-up to assess their medical and dental health needs. Your sponsorship of a family will contribute to these basic costs, making sure that each one has clothing, food, and books for their school.
Every day, the St Monica Family eats breakfast, do their chores, attend classes and extra curricular activities, spend some time gardening with Sister Vialeth, eat dinner, and study together before going to sleep in their shared dormitory space. Their lives are communal and they do everything together, giving each other support and friendship as they progress through their schooling.
The St Peter family consists of 42 boys who come from different regions of Tanzania. The boys are cared for by Sr Ascella and they enrolled in 2023/24 in the newly built Sisters of Mary Boystown School in Dodoma region. She says “like real brothers, they all live together peacefully. Whether in the dormitory or in the classroom, they are always interested to learn new things. Academically, most of them are doing very well and those who came later in January, even though they have a bit of difficulty in English, are helped by those who came earlier in August and September last year. In the dormitory, they also perform their duties very well. But the activity they enjoy the most, besides football, is gardening.
Many of them came from rural areas, and back home they have to help their parents to cultivate and grow different crops for their food. Some use money from working on other farms to help their parents buy food, others use it to buy their school materials. Sometimes, instead of receiving money, they are paid with corn or the crops they helped cultivate or harvest.
Living here in the Sisters of Mary is truly a great blessing for them, and I can see this everyday by their gratefulness and joy in applying themselves, especially with their studies and in their designated duties in the dormitory. Since they like gardening very much, this year they were able to grow different crops like corn, peanuts, beans and some vegetables which we harvested several times and had really helped contribute to the schools food supply.
Thank you so much for supporting this program and giving hope to the boys so as they can fulfil their future dreams.
£9 – Helps provide all the clothing, care, health and hygiene essentials for a child for a month
£21 – Helps provide all the reference books, textbooks, notepads and pens for a child’s education for one month
£26 – Helps provide all the food needed by one child for a month
£84 – Helps provide everything needed to care for one child for a month*
*these costs are based on the average across all our schools
Your donations help us to provide education for the world’s poorest children. They help us to fund school places and the everyday care needed for boys and girls who are without hope. See the difference your monthly or single gift can make to the lives of the children in our care: