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Since 1996 the «Friends of Kisimiri» has helped to build a whole school complex in Kisimiri with a primary, secondary and high school. Kisimiri is unrecognisable. The sustainable support of the public school system of Tanzania is a top priority for the «Friends of Kisimiri». Although all schools are functioning operationally, the projects are not yet completed. The institutions are being further developed and built up modularly – step by step.
It all began in 1994, when Emil Karafiat, the later founder of the «Friends of Kisimiri» association, showed his family where he had grown up - in Kisimiri. The trip was a key event: only thanks to his good school education resulting from his privileged life in Tanzania did he have the opportunity to become a teacher in Switzerland. So Emil Karafiat decided to found an association to support the school in Kisimiri.
«If you give a hungry man a fish, he’ll eat for a day. If you teach him to fish, he has food for a lifetime,» said Julius Kambarage Nyerere, the former president of Tanzania, in reference to a Chinese proverb. It would be difficult to describe the importance of education any more precisely than that.
Emil Karafiat, 1994 in Kisimiri
After the displacement of the socialist system in the 1980s, Tanzania soon found itself on the brink of socio-economic collapse, and today it is still on the lowest rung of economic and social growth. Tanzania is therefore reliant on international aid in many areas.
When the association was founded, the state school system was in a very sorry state of affairs. Kisimiri, a region at the foot of Mt Meru, was particularly badly off, already being one of the most barren and poorest areas. It lacked buildings, premises, teaching materials and at times even motivated teachers; the salary of a primary school teacher amounted to barely US$ 50 per month. There were practically no secondary or high schools: only 3% of all pupils could attend one of the few, mostly privately-run secondary schools, which were, of course, beyond the means of the majority.
With the expansion of the primary school, the construction of a secondary school as well as a high school through «Friends of Kisimiri» has considerably improved the situation for pupils in the region. As a result of the state primary school and later secondary school promotion program that was subsequently propagated nationwide, the school system has improved throughout Tanzania, but it still lags behind other countries.
Informations about Tansania:
World Factbook
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