‘All I wanted to do now was get back to Africa. We had not left it, yet, but when I would wake in the night I would lie, listening, homesick for it already’. Ernest Hemingway (Green Hills of Africa, 72: 1935)

Community Projects

The Story so Far...

Ilkurot Primary & Nursery School is located approximately 30km north of Arusha, Tanzania in a Maasai village called Ilkurot (meaning ‘dusty place’). Upon visiting the school in 2004 we saw that the primary school was in desperate need of school supplies, repairs and extension and there was no nursery school. We decided that we would start by setting up a Nursery School so the children of the village would have a good introduction to the Tanzanian education system and would hopefully progress successfully through Primary School, Secondary School and beyond.
 

Ilkurot villagers are considered to be living well below the Tanzanian poverty line, earning on average less than US$200 per year, therefore it is easy to see that the expense of this level of education (Nursery School) that would normally cost US$40-50 per year, is easily by-passed. Maasai Wanderings is determined to make Nursery School education easily accessible and free to the Maasai children of Ilkurot so that they can obtain a ‘step up’ onto the road to education. We feel by doing this, educated Maasai will be better equipped to assist in retaining their ancient culture that is currently threatened.

The Nursery School opened for students in July 2005 with an intake of 45 students (aged 5-7years). A small unused room (about the size of an average bedroom) was used for the classroom, but word spread and numbers soon outgrew our meagre facilities. By taking tourists on a ‘Maasai Village Experience’ where they eat, dance and talk with the village people and learn first hand about this complex and interesting culture, we were able to raise funds to begin building a new classroom for the Nursery School.

The new classroom was ‘officially’ opened on 25 January 2006 with a massive student increase. To accommodate this increase we now have two sessions a day. The 5 year olds (approx. 110 students) come for the morning session and the 6 year olds (approx. 100 students) arrive for the afternoon session. Each session is served ‘uji’ (a maize porridge with sugar and oil) after their lessons. This is the only food that they would eat during the day – so if they didn’t come to school, they wouldn’t eat until evening. The children love this food – maize (ground corn) is the staple 

diet of the Maasai people. Per month, we use 80kg of maize, 25kg of sugar and 12 litres of cooking oil to make the ‘uji’ and it costs approximately USD$150 for these supplies and to pay someone to cook for all 210 students.

We have recently finished the building of a kitchen, store, staff room and changing room with 3000L water tank in place as well as six new toilets for the Nursery School. We have also sewn each child their own school uniform. The uniforms were made courtesy of another project of ours that allows women with disabled children to stay at home and earn an income by creating a sewing business for themselves. There are currently four women who we have provided with their own sewing machine and sewing equipment. A 2000L water tank was installed near the Primary School mid-2006 to assist with planting trees and grass as a means to control some of the dust in the area. We found the dust was not only the cause of many eye infections but also makes the classrooms very dirty.  A specially trained Nursery Education teacher has also been employed as of 8 January 2007 and all teachers are being taught to use a couple of donated typewriters we were lucky enough to be the recipient of.  To make the monthly exam time a lot easier to manage, we have saved up and bought a second hand duplicating machine, so these two modern aides saves the teachers time and money going into town to get someone to type a paper for them and then paying for each page of photocopying.  This now allows students to be monitored more closely and for teachers to make earlier corrections for a higher rate of end of year passes.

We have a higher attendance of girls than boys in the Nursery School because normally in Maasai life, a young boy of that age group would be sent far away with his father’s cattle. Accompanied by older morani (warriors) they could be away for up to 3-5 years tending to the cattle and learning where good grazing areas, how to recognize signs of disease, etc. In the grazing lands, only boys and men are allowed and so these young boys may not see their mother or sisters for years at a time – unless they are sent to fetch supplies of maize or something from the village. The girls that attend the school have chores also that they need to

carry out before or after their lesson. By the age of 5 or 6 their mothers may have had 2-3 more children, which they are responsible for. They are responsible to feed the smaller children, bathe them and carry them on their backs all day – unless they have someone else to take over this role.

This way of life for young boys and the chores and responsibilities of the young girls was a big hurdle for us in the beginning because we didn’t want to ‘interrupt’ the norms of Maasai life but we also wanted to introduce education which would bring about changes in daily activities. We believe that we have reached a compromise without taking away the Maasai culture. We are continually changing classroom schedules and requirements to make it more and more acceptable to the Maasai community, while still being able to teach the children as much as we can in terms of reading and writing. The biggest task in the one year of Nursery School is to teach the children Swahili (the national language of Tanzania) because in the village they speak only Maa. We have one year only to do this as the Primary School curriculum is taught in Swahili only. We also try to introduce little phrases of English because in Primary School, although you are primarily taught in Swahili, you need to learn English because Secondary School is taught in English only. 

2007 has been a successful year for us at Ilkurot.  Early int the year a container of desks, tables, sewing machines, coal irons, childrens' clothes and kitchen sinks were donated from Singapore.  It was a financial and physical challenge to get it to the village - but we are proud to say that we did it and the students of Ilkurot are now the proud users of this equipment.

Over 1000 textbooks have been purchased to allow the students to actually have something that guides their studies. Also, we have plastered the outside of 4 classrooms and fit

glass windows (one side only). Previously, there were wooden windows in place – meaning that when the wind blew in this dusty place, an almost daily occurrence, the windows needed to be closed which blocked any form of light entering the classrooms. Needless to say, no light / no write.

We employed a Tinga Tinga artist, who supplies wares to Afrika Ink and also carries out our painting lessons for clients, to go and stay in the village for two weeks and paint murals and educational drawings on the newly plastered walls. In Ilkurot, the scenery is bland and the school grounds were excessively so, thus this new splash of colour has truly lifted spirits and allowed the students to enjoy coming to their school.

In 2007, we also planted almost 500 trees in an effort to cut down the dust that does fly and cause so many eye infections and dry coughs. We hope that as we enter 2008, we are able to put more water tanks in place to water the trees so that they can grow and make a marked difference in the school environment.
 

In July and August, we were lucky enough to have Andy and Kelly onboard to construct a playground for the children. A first in the school, a first in the village, a first in the district and only one of a few in the outskirts of Arusha. This has enabled the children to include sports education into their curriculum by way of a basic football pitch, netball court and volleyball court. Also balance beams, monkeys bars and climbing frames are being used for the nursery school to encouragement gross motor skills, counting, and other social skills. We are very grateful for this to have happened.

Current & Future Plans

In 2008, we plan to finish off two classrooms that have been started and built until the stage of standing walls only. This will allow the 1109 students of the Primary School to be able to spread out between 10 classrooms rather than 8. It will also mean the employment of two more teachers into our team, as we divide some of the classes that are bulging with more than 200 students.

We also hope to refurbish the classrooms that are in desperate need of attention – dirt floors, gaps where windows should be, no blackboard, bare brick walls, etc. We believe this will allow the children the space and environment that they need to study at their best levels.

Hygiene is a major concern in the school, with only 3 drops toilets for 1109 students. Needless to say the cleanliness and the stench are well below standard and in fact forces some students to find a bush’. This is not ideal of course as the surrounding areas of the school are village paths, livestock grazing areas and, when it rains, water catchment areas. We have begun to dig the pit to erect

to erect another 14 long drop toilets, hopefully finishing the task in the beginning of 2008.

Much of the money for this project comes from our company, Maasai Wanderings, with intermittent boosts from individuals like family and friends in Australia and around the  world.


We participate in many other community projects within the area of Arusha.
**Artist Assist Programmes

**Secondary School Sponsorships for 12 students – from Ilkurot
**Secondary School Sponsorships for 4 students – from other areas
**Street children assistance for varying numbers
**Micro-finance for women and sewing circles
**Nursery School and Orphanage Assistance in Karatu
**and more…

We participate in many other community projects within the area of Arusha.  If you would like more information on those, please contact: donna@maasaiwanderings.com