Let's help a school in Tanzania! - The Magic of Traveling

Today we want you to meet the lovely community in Mbinga in Ruvuma, Tanzania, the Learn to Serve Community of Tanzania (LESCOTA) organization, and the Mango school project. We want to share a snapshot of what is happening in a very dear to us part of the world, to bring your attention to the ideas and work of people and organizations who deserve to be spread and help them reach their goals. We believe all that matters and we ask every traveler (no matter if you’re planning to visit Tanzania or not yet) who reads this – please think for a second how you can support those people you’re just about to get to know.

The Mango School Project by LESCOTA, Mbinga, Ruvuma, Tanzania

Welcome to Mbinga district, Ruvuma, Tanzania

Ruvuma region is located in the southern part of Tanzania, bordering with Lake Malawi and the country of Malawi to the west and Mozambique to the south.

Mbinga is the second smallest district in Ruvuma, yet, with roughly 103 people per square kilometer, it is the densest in the region (according to Mbinga Town Council). Its area is mainly rural with less than 25% of the area urbanized. The population is relatively young with 53% of the people in the range of 0-19 years of age.

There has been some development and progress in there for the last 20+ years. The progress done over the last 20 years is remarkable, considering that in 1997 about none of the land area was urbanized with 85% consisting of arable land.

Nevertheless, today Ruvuma has still evident primary issues amongst its communities. In fact, the majority of its schools don’t have restrooms, hence many children lead their educational studies in extremely unfavorable sanitary conditions, that, in many cases, lead to dropouts. Therefore, this aligns with the historical lower GDP growth of the region, compared to neighboring regions. In addition, to these primary issues comes the small percentage of English-speaking schools in the area (only 6 in nearly 1.4 million people).

Learn to Serve Community of Tanzania (a.k.a. LESCOTA)

LESCOTA is a Tanzanian NGO operating in the Mbinga district in Ruvuma since 2012. Their mission is to promote community developments through poverty alleviation strategies and among the main objectives they strive to fund primary education for children in Ruvuma. For this purpose, LESCOTA is currently helping 320 children access education in the area.

Past projects of the NGO have been very successful and have significantly helped the communities in which they’ve been implemented. The LESCOTA Matekela library has probably marked the most important milestone so far. The project was inspired by the near MACOBICA library, in Maguu. Matekela is a small village resting on a narrow plateau in the Hagati Valley, about 10 kilometers south of Maguu where the MACOBICA library is
located. For many years kids had trekked long distances to reach the library to exploit its informational resources.

One of these students, now Executive Director of LESCOTA, Maurus Nchimbi has been inspired by the MAOBICA library project and decided to implement a similar one that could directly serve the community of Matekela as well as other nearby. The goal is to help a larger number of kids access the study resources he could get when he was their age. In fact, today the LESCOTA Matekela library includes not only study material for students but also wants to reach the interests of anyone in the community in order to spread a “reading culture” among people in the area.

Furthermore, through the Watobo Bomba project LESCOTA, in partnership with Tanzania Empowerments Through Education Association (TETEA), provides free two-month tuition to seven best standard graduates every year to transition from Swahili medium primary school to English medium secondary schools. Incentives from this program have led to better results from the children, improving their score by 12% on average (according to envaya.org).

The Mango School Project

LESCOTA is now working towards the completion of the Mango school project in order to address sanitary conditions for students and further extend the reach of English-speaking education in Mbinga. This English middle school is almost complete, many school blocks have been built as well as restrooms, offices, and even a small dorm! They only need a library to complete the school.

However, the spread of the Covid-19 is helping neither fundraising nor the hygiene need for the community, need that has become an emergency now. In fact, as of May 9th, 2020, there are more than 300 active cases in the area. These numbers are growing day by day threatening the health of the community. Thus, as we know our own experience, hand sanitation is essential to be safe from the virus.

For this purpose, last time we asked you to support the GoFundMe campaign through which they were collecting donations. And thanks to your generous support and donation, LESCOTA had accomplished the goal of the fundraiser – Hand Washing and Hygiene Emergency Appeal.

Now back to the original scope of the project – complete the school, i.e. the remaining Mango school library. The Mango school library will cover a total of 214 square meters with a capacity of circa 100 children. “The library will be staffed with a group of well-trained librarians, who will assist children with coursework, help them access the internet, and inspire interest development” (Maurus Nchimbi, Executive Director of LESCOTA). We are working to complete the project within September since LESCOTA needs to get the school registration certificate from the Tanzanian government so that it can legally be recognized all over the country and programs can start. In case this project won’t be ready within September, many children would eventually end up losing a year.

So here is the GoFundMe link to the Mango school library campaign. Thank you for your amazing support! 🙏

The United Nations recognizes LESCOTA’s project as well. The UN has supported them by allocating online volunteers to assist with various tasks. For example, most of the content for this article is provided by Edoardo Conti, a Boston University graduate and a UN volunteer.

We have been privileged to have access to good education, we continue to learn every day and we believe everyone should have access to education! If that’s what you believe too, we encourage you to support the Mango school project, especially in those times of pandemic. By supporting the fundraising campaign, you’ll help kids stay at school and have access to clean water. You’ll be helping about 320 kids stay healthy and continue their education. This is the link to the campaign, thank you from the bottoms of our hearts!