Newsletters: Volume 15 - Fall 2005
From the President
As of June 30, 2005, Growth Through Learning completed another exciting year. Contributions have increased, and the number of scholarships issued has reached a new level. During the year, 150 scholarships were awarded to the girls and young women of East Africa. Of that number, 133 of them are enrolled in secondary school, and the remaining 17 are studying at the college level.
From our discussions with the girls, we have reaffirmed several things. First, the hunger for further education is insatiable; and second, in order for our students to have a real opportunity for meaningful employment, they simply must have some form of post-secondary school training. There are simply not enough entry-level employment opportunities for secondary school graduates.
It is also heartening to note that we are receiving many offers from potential volunteers who believe strongly in GTL’s mission. From high school students, to former Peace Corps workers, to retirees, the desire to help is widespread. Rachel Serotta, a recent Colby College graduate, provided invaluable assistance over this past summer. You can read more about Rachel elsewhere in this newsletter.
Most noteworthy is that our current goal of offering 200 scholarships this year represents a 33 1/3% increase over the past fiscal year. It is only through the generosity of our donors that this possible. The details of our progress are shown in the accompanying graph.
Donations & Number of Scholarships
A New Scholarship Coordinator
Zainab Tekway Sige
GTL warmly welcomes Zainab Tekway Sige as the first full-time Scholarship Coordinator for the Arusha, Tanzania area. Zainab is from the Babati-Manyara area of Tanzania. She has worked in the travel industry since graduating from secondary school and is fluent in several languages. She has been employed by the Cambridge, MA-based Thompson Safari Company for the past several years, first as an instructor for children traveling on safari and recently as a reservation manager at Gibbs Farms, Ngorongoro Crater. She has also started her own business of exporting Mpingo/Ebony (East African Blackwood) to the United States.
Zainab replaces Yona Andrew Nnko who was the first Scholarship Coordinator for the Arusha, Tanzania area.
Student Profile
Tenahuvo Abai Mahanyu
Tenahuvo Abai Mahanyu is a beginning student at St. Joseph’s this year at fifteen years of age. Her hometown, Lushoto, is in the Usambara mountains in the Tanga region. There are nine children in her family, and she is the “middle” child, with four on either side. Her mom is her only parent, and she sells food for a living. Of the seventy-five students in her Form 1 class, Tenahuvo ranks 20-th. History and geography are her favorite subjects, and, after she completes A level, Tenahuvo wants to become a teacher.
Women Ten Years After Beijing
In 1995 the UN organized the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing. At that time there was great hope that the status of women would improve in such critical areas as health, domestic safety, economy, education and training, and political and institutional empowerment.
Nevertheless, despite the hope expressed at Beijing, a recent survey has revealed that little real progress has been made in the past ten years in these areas of concern. Governments are willing to sign agreements but are hesitant to implement them.
In Africa, while some countries have made strides in increasing educational opportunities for women, the situation has not improved for those in rural communities. For instance, the Maasai village elders in Tanzania believe that boys are prized for their book learning but girls are valued for the dowry they bring to the family through marriage. If a girl remains unwed at home, she must work—to carry water, to help with the planting, cooking, and cleaning, and to care for younger siblings. There is hardly time for school. In Tanzania only 18 percent of primary school children—both boys and girls—continue their education in secondary school.
Providing opportunities for young women to receive a secondary school education is how Growth Through Learning helps improve the lives of women in East Africa—one student at a time. If the financial burden of education can be relieved, a family can allow a daughter to continue her schooling. She can then improve her own chances to gain control of her life, help her family, and eventually contribute to the future of her country.
The 10-year survey after the Beijing Women’s Conference found that more African women live in absolute (getting by on less that $1 a day) and relative poverty than in 1995. Providing education to women is how contributors to GTL can help each girl make the transition from the limitations of her present life to a richer—in both the cultural and monetary senses of the word—life in the modern world.
GTL Thanks Rachel Serotta
Rachel Serotta
Rachel Serotta, a resident of Northborough, MA, worked for GTL this past summer as a volunteer. With her help, our organization vastly improved the record maintenance and database systems.
In addition to her time at GTL, Rachel also spent her summer as the Services Coordinator, a volunteer position, at the Eritaj Foundation, a nonprofit organization that coordinates funding and evaluates grassroots development projects in Haiti. Rachel is currently in New Delhi, India for three months as an intern for Cross Cultural Solutions, a community-based organization that serves impoverished women and children.
Rachel attended Worcester Academy in Worcester, MA, and she recently received her Bachelor of Arts degree, magna cum laude, from Colby College in Waterville, Maine. At Colby she majored in Government and minored in Human Development and Social Justice. Upon her return from India, Rachel plans to pursue graduate studies in International Development.
GTL Begins Mentoring Program
GTL has begun a model mentoring program for their secondary school students in Arusha. This program will be used to measure post-graduation success of the Arusha students against the success of students in Uganda and Kenya, who are not being mentored at this time.
Many Arusha students are orphans or the first female students in their families to attend secondary school. Their role models have mostly been their stay-at-home mothers. This life is very hard. Young girls see the dependency their mothers have on men who may treat them badly, die young, or just walk away from the family. The students know there is a better life through education, yet they often do not have the tools to achieve their goal of becoming independent women.
Zainab Tekway Sige, the new coordinator in Arusha, has accepted the challenge to become their mentor. She will meet with each student twice a semester. She will help them identify their skills and offer them suggestions on how they can achieve their goals, provide encouragement, and attend to issues in their lives that may be troubling them.
Eileen Birch Joins the Board
Eileen Birch
We are pleased to announce the recent election of Eileen Birch of Shrewsbury, MA, to the Board of Directors of Growth Through Learning. Eileen is an R.N. who has a Bachelor of Science Degree, and a Master’s Degree in Pastoral Counseling from Assumption College. She has worked in many areas of nursing including parish nursing, public health nursing, and as a Bereavement Coordinator with Hospice of Central Massachusetts.
Currently Eileen is on the board of FOR Special Friends, an organization that raises money for special needs individuals’ enrichment programs in the greater Worcester area. As the mother of five grown children, she well appreciates the value of education for all. She has long expressed an interest in our mission and is eager to participate as a member of the Secondary School Scholarship Committee.
Poverty—Can It End?
Children affected by poverty
One of the most inspirational films of the past year was Hotel Rwanda starring Don Cheadle in the true story of Paul Rusesabagina, a hotel manager who housed over a thousand Tutsi refugees during their struggle against the Hutu militia in Rwanda in 1994. Nick Nolte played Colonel Oliver, leader of the UN peacekeeping forces who, in explaining to Paul why Americans weren’t responding to the plight of the Tutsis, said that Americans will get alarmed at what they see on their TV screens—whether it’s political torture or economic distress—but will forget about the tragedy as soon as they turn off their TV sets and return to their comfortable existence.
One American who has not been content to turn off his TV set without taking action is Jeffrey Sachs, a Columbia University economist who for the past twenty years has been advising developing nations on ways to improve their economy. He hopes that his new book The End of Poverty will cause those in developed nations to change their attitudes towards the world’s poor, to stop blaming the unfortunate for their condition, and to do something practical to help the world’s deprived climb onto the ladder of development.
Sachs exposes the usual complaint about corruption and misrule being responsible for poverty in Africa as a gross oversimplification and argues how futile belt-tightening is, the usual prescription the International Monetary Fund has given to poor countries that ask for help from the rich. He points out the irony that the people in these countries are too poor even to own belts. Also, what good does it do to urge farmers to increase agricultural production when the cost of fertilizer has doubled and they can no longer afford it?
Earning a subsistence income
We all know about the US government’s expensive war on terrorism as a result of 9/11, but Sachs claims that not enough attention has been given to the deeper causes of global instability, especially poverty. A particular concern of his is Africa where nearly half the population lives in extreme poverty (surviving on an income of less than $1 a day) and the economic boom that has reduced the proportion of extreme poor in East and South Asia has bypassed Africa.
Five development interventions Sachs recommends for the villages in the Kenyan savannah are these: boosting agriculture, improving basic health, investing in education, bringing electric power, and providing clean water and sanitation. The cost of these is too high for the villages and the Kenyan government to assume. That is why, Sachs explains, the developing countries must turn to the developed nations for aid.
Yes, governments must help, but so too must individuals. Just as Paul Rusesabagina acted to stop injustice in Rwanda, so too do the contributors to Growth Through Learning play a role in breaking the cycle of poverty in Africa. GTL’s donors are investing in education, one of the essential development interventions Jeffrey Sachs recommends that can help to end poverty.
Last modified: Dec 01, 2005, 11:46 EST