The government provides some teachers, some buildings, and a small budget for books and other items. Primary school, K-VII, and now secondary school is required — for both boys and girls. The people of these communities have no discretionary funds and cannot afford to augment the government budget. Infrastructure improvements include: providing textbooks and desks; adding classrooms and renovating existing ones; creating housing for the teachers so they can live close to the school; building latrines; establishing a student center with kitchen, dining hall, library, computer center, solar power where there is no electric; large water cisterns that catch rain water, as well as smaller items like projectors, copy machines, etc.
The first year of secondary school has some one time expenses and is taught entirely in English. We try to address these issues as well. Meali Primary School , our namesake, was our first project, and we are very proud of the result. In five years, we totally, physically, transformed the school and are now continuing to support the school with a variety of programs, to become more deeply involved with the community, instill a greater understanding of the value of education, and help the children more fully realize their potential.
We call this phase two. Losirwa Primary School We have now completed our large projects at Losirwa, including classrooms, teacher housing, student center, and latrines and have gone into phase two. Today there are over Enough is enough. The government has set aside 17 acres and asked Friends of Meali to build a school. We are! The quid pro quo is the naming rights.
What better way to honor Lucas for the continuing selfless, caring work he has done than to name the school for him. Oldeani Primary School started as part of our holiday drive for books and desks. By far the largest of these three schools, we have now helped them with larger projects. We have built and renovated teacher housing now housing 11 teachers on campus, completely renovated 18 classrooms and built a large student center with the usual computer lab, kitchen and library.
The Hope School for Girls and Boys is an independent non-profit school located in the outskirts of Arusha. Lucas Mhina is the founder and director. It is not a government school, hence independent, allowing Lucas and his staff to try different methods of teaching, and to greatly enhance the curriculum with more student participation and thought. Although it is non-profit it has a much larger budget than the government schools hence better facilities and offers more opportunities.
