AfricAid

Vital Stats

Golden, CO

  • people helped20000
  • People Doing It 250

The Problem

AfricAid is a nonprofit organization that supports girls’ education in Africa in order to provide young women with the opportunity to transform their own lives and the futures of their communities. On the African continent, where a lack of education is so highly correlated with issues such as AIDS, obtaining an education can literally be a life and death matter both for individuals and for entire communities. For many girls in Tanzania, however, going to school has never been an option. In fact, around 95 percent of the country’s females do not complete secondary school. For the fortunate few who do attend school, many study in classrooms with no textbooks, few desks, and only one teacher for every 50 to 100 students. Girls of the Maasai tribe have even fewer educational opportunities than do their female peers. The Maasai are one of the ethnic tribes of East Africa, well known for their tall, slender figures, brilliant red fabrics, beaded jewelry, and nomadic way of life. As modernization, though, has begun to cause their way of life to slowly disappear, many Maasai leaders have recognized that, in order for their vibrant culture and people to survive, they need to have a voice in their future. AfricAid believes that girls’ education can best provide this needed voice and help sustain the Maasai’s unique culture. AfricAid's support for schools and other educational programs is, thus, dedicated to helping empower young women throughout Tanzania, including those of the Maasai, and to giving them that voice in their future.

Plan of Action

To accomplish its goals, AfricAid has accomplished the following since 2001 in its mission to benefit girls’ education in Africa: Raised over $600,000 in cash contributions and school supplies. These funds have been used in the following ways: Funded over 200 one-year scholarships for girls’ secondary education Provided over $90,000 in school supplies, computers, and other classroom equipment to nine primary and secondary schools in Tanzania, Ethiopia, and Zambia Provided building supplies and labor for the construction of eight primary and secondary classrooms and related facilities at three schools in Tanzania Provided funding for a community school and an educational project in Zambia Assisted a Tanzanian village in the construction of a vocational center Provided computers for computer labs at three secondary schools and sewing machines for a vocational center for "at-risk" girls Initiated a local “micro-credit” project for the funding of a school lunch program for an impoverished rural Maasai village in Tanzania Provided funding for the construction of a water pipe to provide clean drinking water to a remote primary school without a water source of its own Initiated Teaching in Action, a model teacher-training program designed to promote the procurement and dissemination of student-centered teaching materials and the continuation and expansion of active, participatory teaching methods among Tanzanian teachers Helped develop a greater culture of service learning and service activities among American youth through AfricAid Clubs formed throughout the United States, the AfricAid Kids Team (AKT) and its "Changemakers" Service Learning Curriculum, encouraging youth to get involved in AfricAid and other worthy service projects

Project Updates

AfricAid has now successfully implemented the Teaching in Action (TIA) program, an annual workshop that brings together secondary school teachers from all across Tanzania and instructs them in student-centered, participatory teaching practices.  Because teachers have historically used methods of rote memorization in their classroom instruction, students often finish their time in school unprepared for their national exams and for effective participation in the Tanzanian workforce.  Through TIA, Tanzanian teachers are taught techniques that help equip their students for success after graduation. AfricAid has partnered with TIA’s creator, Dr. Frances Vavrus of the University of Minnesota, to implement the first two years of the TIA program, and plans to significantly expand the program in 2009. 

In addition, AfricAid is seeking to help address the shortage of medical personnel in Tanzania by facilitating the implementation of and subsequent medical paraprofessional vocational training of Tanzanian women in an Assistant Medical Officer (AMO) program to be offered at Selian Lutheran Hospital in Arusha, Tanzania. Assistant Medical Officers have much the same rights and responsibilities as medical doctors, and can see and diagnose patients, prescribe and perform more routine surgical procedures, and deal with medical problems that have established protocols, such as gynecological issues, internal medicine problems, malaria and other tropical diseases and AIDS, but may not have the depth of training needed to handle unusual or more complex medical conditions. AMO programs can provide the opportunity for young women to obtain an education past secondary school and subsequently have access to good jobs in a country where unemployment levels can reach 40%. While AMO training is considered by many to be the long-term answer to many of Africa’s health care challenges, AMOs constitute only about 7% of all sub-Saharan health workers, primarily due to a lack of both governmental and individual monetary resources. AfricAid is working to help provide some of the needed resources for this worthwhile program.

2009 will also see the launch of AfricAid's unique and groundbreaking Mother-Daughter Leadership Project. This program is designed to provide both an educational opportunity and leadership training to motivated Tanzanian girls who might not otherwise be able to attend secondary school, and who have mother figures in their lives who are committed to their educational and professional success. Tanzanian mother-daughter teams will be paired with mother-daughter teams in the U.S., who will provide scholarship funding for the Tanzanian students to attend one of AfricAid’s three partner schools. The students will be brought together each year for leadership training workshops that will include mentoring training for their mothers. Through AfricAid-forged partnerships, local businesses, service sector providers, schools, and other institutions will commit to providing employment to program participants after graduation, giving them unprecedented access to potential employers. They will also be a part of a growing network of female leaders in Tanzania, from whom they will be able to enjoy continuing support.
The program’s aims are thus three-fold: 1) provide educational opportunities to aspiring young girls, 2) afford them strong leadership training in addition to a truly meaningful education, and 3) create new and lasting bonds between mothers and daughters here and abroad.

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