Em & Sam Mac to the Rescue
The School of St. Jude
Em & Sam Mac 29 June, 2009 - 2:39 PM
Gemma Sisia was always a 'challenge junkie' according to her parents, so it was no surprise to anyone when she established an Australian run school in Tanzania. Gemma originally went to Africa to work in a convent school started by an order of French nuns. But her plans changed on safari when she fell in love with her Tanzanian guide, Richard.
Gemma and Richard married in 2001. Gemma started a scheme to sponsor the education of African children, but then decided to go one step further and build her own school to fight poverty through education.
Seven years later, the School of St Jude is flourishing with 1200 students but donations to keep it running are drying up as the global financial crisis takes hold. Now Gemma faces her biggest challenge yet, can the school find the money to educate the next generation of students.
92.9 and Auto Masters donated $3500 to St Jude's to help support the current children and educate other kids that will enter the school next year.
Meet Some Of The Pupils
If you would like to help the School of St. Jude you can contact them via these channels below.
http://www.schoolofstjude.co.tz/
schoolofstjude@habari.co.tz
Australian Contact: Monica Hart
Address: 35 Bomaderry Crescent, Glenning Valley NSW 2261
Email: monniehart@hotmail.com
Phone: 02 4389 2282
Mobile: 0418 969 598
Phone International: (+255) 754 566 136
Address: PO Box 11875, Arusha, Tanzania, East Africa
Story from Australian Story on the ABC June 8:
"I wanted to help two girls back in Uganda go to this school. I started a $5-a-month contribution scheme that my family and friends joined in on. I was then approached by Richard's father and he said, "If I was to give you a small piece of land, would you be able to build a school for the poor?" And I went, oh, wow. I'd love to build the school, thinking it'd be really easy.
We opened the school in January 2002 with a whole 3 children. The school is located in northern Tanzania, east Africa. For a while the school was being run by 3 Australian women who really had no idea what they were doing.
Now, each week during our sponsorship selection season we get around 3,000 applicants. And maybe from those 3,000 applicants 7 or 8 might be successful, and we do that every week until we get our quota of 150 children for the year.
Then we had a problem, which was a lovely problem to have, we had too many kids and not enough land. We got together and thought well why don't we open a second school.
It opened last year and this year we have 650 students getting an education in our new primary school.
Towards the end of 2008 the global recession hit us quite hard, we started getting emails from long term sponsors saying that their financial situation had changed, and they were no longer about to sponsor their child, which was really sad because some of these sponsors had been helping the school since it started.
We actually have 185 students currently at the school who don't have sponsors. And because of that reason at the beginning of 2009 I had to let go 47 workers, local workers from the school, 16 local teachers, several cooks, cleaners, guards and gardeners. It was heartbreaking.
That's why I've come to Australia to try and raise money. We're here for seven weeks and we don't have one day off. I don't care, I'll sleep in the car, I'll not sleep at all. I have a huge responsibility and a lot of pressure on my shoulders and I want to make sure that the school comes through the other end.
I'm determined that by the time I get on the plane I will have all my kids sponsored, all my teachers sponsored, so we can start selecting and employing the next lot for January 2010."
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Denise Chadbund says
Thought you may be interested to hear that there are three female teachers from Kinrosss Primary School heading to School of St Jude this October school holidays.
Posted Saturday 29 August, 2009 6:18 PM -
Sara says
I was listening to the show this morning and heard of this wonderful thing that all these people are doing. especially Gemma. I am currently working as a receptionist in a small office South of Perth and i know that this is not the career for me.
For the last few years i have had a dream to help people in countries of need to be better educated, not just those who are able to learn to read but those who do not have hearing.
My sister also wants to help as she has had alot to go through in her life already and we think this will make her a stronger person. We want to do this together.
I say this is a great thing that Gemma is doing and i say keep it up.
Posted Wednesday 9 September, 2009 5:56 PM
