Where are they from?

Sponsors of the School of St Jude live in 23 different countries. Most of them are in Australia as the following list shows.

Australia -- 1331
England -- 36
Ireland -- 31
USA -- 31
New Zealand -- 30
Canada -- 14
Northern Ireland -- 9
Tanzania -- 5
Italy -- 5
UAE -- 3
Netherlands -- 2
Singapore -- 2
Germany -- 2
These countries are home to one sponsor -- Japan, PNG, Sth Africa, India, Austria, Scotland, Senegal, Denmark, Dominican Republic, France.

How is that for networking?

These sponsors fund the everyday expenses of the school. New buildings and other development is funded through donations.

MDG African success story

A picture tells a thousand words and this one says SUCCESS loud and clear.


This graph from William Easterly’s paper, How the Millennium Development Goals are unfair to Africa shows the great strides made by Sub-Saharan African countries in working towards universal primary education.

African countries have made massive progress in the past 40 years so that the gap between African countries and other developing countries is now minor. Easterly notes that despite this huge achievement, African countries will be labelled ‘failure’ if they don’t achieve 100% by 2015 because the Millennium Development Goal for education is expressed in absolute terms.

Supporters of the School of St Jude know that they are part of this remarkable achievement. Better than that, supporters know that the kids at St Jude’s are getting a fantastic, high-quality education worthy of their talents.

So, don’t feel disheartened when you read that Sub-Saharan African countries won’t achieve the MDGs, a fresh look at the data can show that they have made very good progress. We'll just keep working at it, shall we?

William Easterly's paper is published at the Brookings Institute.

Norway continues support for Tanzania

Just one week after Tanzania and her 19 major development partners concluded a comprehensive annual review of general budget support, Norway has committed to another five years of budget support for Tanzania.

Norway will give US$72m p.a. between 2007-2011.

Tanzania Finance Minister Zakia Meghji said,

Norway continues to be among the champions of the General Budget Support modality of aid delivery, which is the Tanzanian government's preferred mechanism because it minimises transaction costs and builds the country's capacity through the use of Government structures and systems. The aid also enhances accountability and good governance.

This aid commitment extends beyond one year and is an important response to Tanzania's appeal to her development partners to facilitate medium-term expenditure planning for better coherence and resources allocation.

According to the Norwegian ambassador to Tanzania, Mr Jon Lomoy, the funding is aimed at ensuring that Tanzania achieves millennium development goals of reducing child mortality and improving maternal health.

According to him, infant mortality declined from 95/1000 live births in 2002 to 68/1000 last year while under-five mortality from 154/1000 live births to 133/1000 live births.

We still have a long way to go to achieve the intended targets of reducing infant mortality to 50/1000 live births by 2010 and reduce child mortality to 75/1000 live births.

Organisations like the School of St Jude that rely on donations need to have some certainty about future donations and also some flexibility about how to spend the money.

Your regular donations help the School with on-going running costs and to plan for future developments. And your donations are helping Tanzania meet the Millennium Development Goal of Primary School education for girls and boys.

Tanzania lags East Africa in school enrolment

The latest UN Human Development Programme report 2007 shows the following enrolment rates across primary, secondary and tertiary levels:

Uganda: 63%
Kenya: 60.6%
Rwanda: 50.9%
Tanzania: 50.4%

The Tanzanian Government has encouraged the private sector and religious institutions to build schools, and every region has set high targets to build schools, but there is an acute shortage of qualified teachers and teaching facilities.

Tanzania's education history was checkered during the British colonial era when it closed all schools for ten years, while Kenya and Uganda weren't interrupted.

Given the shortage of teachers and facilities, perhaps Tanzania should relax restrictions on foreign teachers until enough local teachers are trained.

The School of St Jude attracts quality teachers by paying good salaries and offering professional development training. Volunteer teachers also contribute their skills and experience.

New Government; new policies

The new Labor government in Australia has a couple of things going for it, from my point of view.

Firstly, there will be a new energy in the way the country is led, and this will pervade all aspects of government.

Very importantly, Kevin Rudd has said he will ratify Kyoto. This places Australia at the table of international action on the most important issue of our time.

Secondly, he has committed to increasing Australia's Foreign Aid to .5% as a step towards meeting our commitments to end global poverty and meet the Millennium Development Goals.

So, I'm very glad for this outcome and I hope that the new Government lives up to the potential for good leadership that comes with a new beginning.

Aerogram gratitude

The kids at St Jude's are smart and cute! And they know how lucky they are to be at an excellent school.

People who visit the school always comment on how energetic and happy the kids are. From time to time we get a taste when we receive one of their blue aerogram thankyou letters. Blue aerograms are from another world. They are not used much in the modern world of email, but they are a perfect vehicle for kids in Tanzania to write to sponsors and donors.

It's fun to see the kids growing up through their aerograms. In the early years the aerograms had only a sentence or two and the space was filled with drawings and stickers. Now the kids are getting older and their English is developing.

Our latest aerogram has a lot more writing. It is full of news about Tanzania.

It starts with a 'thankyou' and chitchat about the weather.


Then we get some facts about news about Tanzania and recent events. Volcanos, earthquakes and Tanzanite.


With illustrations of course!


It is very good to stay close to this excellent education project in Tanzania. We watch world developments on a global level, or at a country level, and it is good to also see what is happening in one particular place. I know that our support for this project is just a grain of rice on a global scale, but on the individual level of the child who wrote this aerogram, our support is his whole future.

Christmas is coming

The shops are stocked and it's time to plan your household decorations.

There are lots of places where you can look to find interesting and unusual Christmas decorations and gifts. The best gifts are those that help the maker and the giver, as well as the receiver.

Fair trade crafts from Africa will fit the bill nicely!

What about these cheerful Santas? They are nicely surreal. Check them out at One World Projects.


These Santas (8-9 inches tall) are made in Mali from soft drink cans. They are made by a project that supports anti-malarial initiatives.

I think I will share more of the curiosities I have come across in the next few weeks. You may see something that takes your fancy.

If you'd like to see some Fair Trade crafts, check out your nearest Oxfam shop, locations can be found here. I was pleased to find a new one open up nearby. Now I've got a local source of Fair Trade coffee. It tastes pretty good too.

Free rice

I enjoy the various websites where you click a button and a sponsor makes a donation to a needy cause. I seem to have contributed to several over the years.



Free rice is the latest incarnation. It's a bit addictive because it is set up as a word quiz. Every time you get a word right, a sponsor donates to the UN World Food Program.

Give it a go, and add your bit. How far can you get in the quiz? I got to level 43, but there were a few guesses in there.

Great for trivia fans too.