Newsletters: Volume 14 - Spring 2005
GTL Welcomes Catherine Pojani
Catherine Pojani
Catherine Pojani, a resident of North Grafton, MA, is GTL’s first paid staff member. She formerly worked for a non-profit Housing Authority in Maine as an Office/Service Coordinator, and as a member of the secretarial support staff at both Regis and Holy Cross College. She also has 5 years of selfemployment experience providing grant research and secretarial services. Cathy is very interested in education for women and is pleased to be involved with GTL’s mission to give our young students an opportunity for a better life.
New Address for GTL
Cathy and Roger at GTL’s New Office
In 1996, upon returning from a safari in Africa, Roger Whiting began research on how he could set up a non-profit organization that would provide for the education of young women in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. By 1997, GTL was incorporated and several girls were in school by January 1998. The corporate office of GTL was homed in his personal office space at 3 Shanandoah Drive in Paxton, MA.
Applications from 732 girls and young women, information from 64 different schools, bulging files of correspondence with the 4 African coordinators, stacks of stationary, carousels of slides for presentations and a computer database of donors, nearly pushed his personal life from his Paxton office. For all of these years he personally absorbed many of the operating expenses of GTL, and on several occasions he also personally financed his trips to Africa. His 24/7 attentions to detail eroded the “free time” ordinarily associated with retirement. In the fall of 2004, plans began to be made to free Mr. Whiting of some of these restraints.
A paid staff member, and official office space located in Worcester, MA. has given him back his home office. The new corporate address of GTL is: 625 Chandler Street, Rm 22, Worcester, MA 01602. The telephone number is: 508-752-2042 and the fax number is: 508-752-2062. The E-mail address remains the same: GTLorg@aol.com and as you read in the article above, Catherine Pojani is the new Administrative Assistant.
The new office space and the Administrative Assistant are possible because of a single generous donor who bestowed upon GTL a significant continuing income for the express purpose of providing a paid staff member who could assist in further establishing the permanence of GTL. As a totally volunteer organization the ability to guarantee continuity was becoming increasingly difficult.
The additional expenses will in no way dilute other donors intended goal of directing their contributions toward educational scholarships. During fiscal year, 2004, GTL was able to commit 90% of donated income to the scholarship program, as just 10% was required for operational and fund raising expenses. The same ratio is expected to continue into the future.
A Proud GTL Graduate
Julianna Martin Mbise
In June of 2002, Julianna Martin Mbise proved to be a lifeline for me during my two week stay in a rural village of northern Tanzania. At that time I was a guest in her brother’s house (among a family who spoke no English) and Julianna would kindly visit and relieve me from wrestling with a Swahili dictionary and soothe me with conversational English. I was soon to learn that she had been a GTL girl for the previous four years.
Growth Through Learning had sponsored Julianna through the first four years (called ‘O’ for “ordinary” level) of her secondary education, at St. Joseph’s Secondary School in Ngarenaro. She had just graduated fourth in her class of 70 and had scored very well on the national exams. She dearly wanted to continue to pursue an ‘A’ (“advanced”) level degree at a top two-year secondary school some 300 km. to the south. The Mkwawa Secondary School in Iringa only serves these “advanced” students and is the largest secondary school in all of Tanzania, with 700 students in each of the two years. When I met Julianna she had just learned that Mkwawa had accepted her, and she hoped to begin her academic year in the next month, July 2002, if she were fortunate enough to receive another GTL scholarship.
With the help of Roger Whiting and GTL, Julianna studied for the next two years at Mkwawa and graduated this past May. I interviewed her in July 2004 as she awaited the result of her exit exams which would determine if she would qualify for her dream: to study law in Dar es Salaam. As she waited, she was gainfully employed full time in an upscale office in Arusha.
It is especially gratifying to see, firsthand, the impact GTL provides in the life of a single woman from a rural village. Knowing Julianna as I do, and reconnecting with her this past summer, gave me an opportunity to experience how GTL changes lives.
Water and Education in Tanzania
Tanzanian Waterhole
One may ask, what does water have to do with a discourse on education, other than its need in a school setting for hygienic reasons and a thirst quencher. Surprisingly, the lack of water in certain areas of Tanzania has had a profound effect on the education of women in particular. Arusha, TZ has a population that is very dense and increasing rapidly and as a result public water sources are too few. Many homes do not have running water or plumbing of any sort. So, everywhere that there is a public tap with water, it is surrounded by a crowd of people with brightly colored buckets. Most of these people are women and girls. Because of social expectations, women are more likely to have the tasks of mopping, doing laundry, cooking, washing dishes and bathing children, all of which require water, which they must procure for themselves. Therefore, they spend a great amount of their time and energy in the task of acquiring water. The need for water oftentimes wins out over the need for education as women in Arusha struggle to survive. Hopefully in the future, a much needed adequate infrastructure will help to alleviate this problem and allow girls time to get an education.
From the President
Since our last newsletter Growth Through Learning has undergone some most dramatic changes. Above are articles about our new Administrative Assistant, Cathy Pojani, and our new official office in Worcester, MA. In addition we have changed the look of our newsletter, finding that it is not much more expensive to print the photographs in color rather than black and white.
The transitional process has been complex to say the least. Many candidates for the post of Administrative Assistant were interviewed, suitable office space had to be located, furniture and computer equipment had to be purchased and installed along with wiring for telephone and internet service. Further, payroll, withholding and government reporting procedures had to be initiated. Also required was the purchase of Worker’s Compensation, Business Insurance, and Massachusetts Unemployment Insurance.
Simultaneously, we realized that some of our computer software needed to be updated in order to better communicate with the Board of Directors, and especially with the Scholarship Committees. At the same time our bookkeeping software is being updated to better facilitate the preparation of the monthly and annual financial reports.
Some of this effort required consultants who were specialists in a specific program. We are deeply indebted to Steve Laravee who helped us with a database program called FileMaker, our accountant, Steve Richer who helped with reconfiguring our financial record keeping, and Computer Central, whose specialists helped to properly set up our computers and networking system. Al Hunt was a huge asset in helping to configure our office.
All in all the process has been exhausting, frustrating, and time consuming. However, the transition is now nearly completed, and I must admit…I am very pleased with the results! I know that GTL’s program has taken a giant step toward sustainability and permanence for many years into the future.
GTL Welcomes New Board Member
Joanne Saprapasen
Joanne Saprapasen, a full-time secretary in the Boston College Development Office, is a native of Tanzania and currently is pursuing her bachelors’ degree in marketing and corporate systems at Boston College. Joanne’s passions include working for the betterment of educational methods in African nations. Currently, she is actively involved in collecting book donations which she ships to schools in Tanzania.
We are extremely pleased that Joanne has agreed to join us on the Board of Directors of GTL and to become a member of the Long Term Planning Committee. Having originally come from East Africa, she has a wealth of knowledge and experience that will provide us with even more insight into the conditions there, and how we might best serve those we are sponsoring with educational scholarships. It is most encouraging to note that as time passes our Board continues to increase in depth and knowledge with those who have had experience in Africa.
Richard A. Jenson Returns to Tanzania
Board member Richard Jenson, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Mathematics at Boston College, will return to Tanzania in June for a five-week visit. Some of that time will be spent documenting Growth Through Learning’s presence in the Arusha area. In addition to meeting with our Scholarship Coordinator there, he plans to visit the schools where we are sponsoring girls. It is also his goal to make a video portraying our students, their schools, and their families. This will be Richard’s fourth visit to East Africa.
Beverly Alexandre Visits Arusha
Joyce Mathew Lyatuu and Hogla Stephen Laiser
On my most recent trip to Arusha in March of 2005, I spent some time visiting with some of the girls receiving scholarships from Growth Through Learning. It was most important to me that I could visit as many schools and students in Arusha as possible. Fortunately, Mr. Yona Andrew Nnko, our local GTL Scholarship Coordinator in that area, was of great help in arranging for these visits. He decided on three schools which was a most ambitious undertaking considering the distances between them and the travel time to each.
The first school we visited was the Makamira Secondary School in the Usa River area. Makamira School is a private secondary school run by the Lutheran Church. There are approximately 862 students, male and female, who board there attending Forms 1-6. That is the equivalent of our junior high and high school grades 7-12. The school is located in a very isolated rural area accessed by a dirt road full of ruts, rocks and a few downed trees blocking the way. Thankfully we were in a 4 wheel drive vehicle. One realizes that one would need to board there as transportation options to get there are very limited.
Most of the teaching at Makamira takes place in English. This is because the government exams are primarily in English with just a smattering in Swahili. Teachers at the school get paid $150 per month if they are a diploma holder and $200 per month if they are a degree holder. The teachers board there as well. Students wear uniforms of different colors according to which Form they are in. I met with 16 girls most of whom were in Forms 1 and 2. Since they were in their first years of studying English, they were shy and self conscious not wanting to make any spoken errors. They also for the most part, had little interaction with foreigners, which added to their shyness. What a joy to meet with them. They all expressed their thanks to GTL and were happy to meet with an American. Both the headmaster and headmistress of the school talked of the challenges facing girls in procuring an education. If parents have limited funds and need to decide between educating their sons or daughters, the boys are usually educated first as they feel that later in life the boys may help their families, but the girls will go to their husbands family and not be of any help. Girls are not a good investment. Parents often feel they are luckier to have boys and view girls as inferior. Traditionally, some tribes do not wish to have their girls educated at all as they feel a woman’s place is at home. Ever so slowly that concept is changing. The headmaster stated that recently studies in TZ have shown that girls when educated do come back to their parents and help. If only more parents could be made aware of this perhaps they would be a lot more open to educating their girls.
In the afternoon, I visited St. Joseph Ngarenaro Secondary School where I was greeted by Sister Mary Shaija, the Headmistress. There I met with 10 girls being sponsored by GTL. Again, most were in Forms 1 and 2 but did not appear as shy as the girls from Makamira while speaking English – possibly because St. Joseph’s is not as remote as Makamira. Here, the girl’s dress in uniforms according to which dormitory they live in. Sr. Mary stated that the greatest problem facing secondary schools such as St. Joseph’s is the abundance of orphaned girls due to their parents’ deaths from HIV-Aids and lack of funds and/or sponsors available to pay for their education.
In addition to the two secondary schools, I visited a post-secondary school, The Institute of Accountancy in Arusha where I met with the Dean, John Nanyaro and two very lovely, poised young ladies who hope to enter the business world quite shortly. Both Joyce and Hogla spoke very good English and were especially grateful for the opportunity GTL has given them to obtain an education which they would not have been able to do on their own. It was quite remarkable to meet with them and think that probably a few short years ago they were one of those shy young girls in Form 1 or 2 who felt self conscious and awkward. I can only believe that the intellectual and personal growth they have achieved is due in large part to the sponsorship by GTL. They truly embody the spirit of Growth Through Learning.
Last modified: Aug 07, 2005, 17:57 EDT