St. Anne School Moshi Area, Tanzania – Electricity for Education
According to UNESCO, 92% of people in sub-Saharan Africa live without electricity. When the sun sets, the completion of daily chores such as cooking, cleaning and school work wanes as inexpensive light sources are sparse. The lack of electricity in rural Africa is often a drain on productivity and a great detriment to the schooling of children in the region. After school, many African children spend the remaining daylight hours doing their requisite household chores. Subsequently, in the evening hours, without electricity, they have trouble finishing their schoolwork and studying for their exams.
With such obstacles, many schoolchildren fall behind in their schoolwork and, often, leave school altogether. UNICEF estimates that while nearly 60% of children in sub-Saharan Africa attend primary school, the number drops to a mere 21% for secondary school. Local NGOs argue that the lack of light at night is one of the main reasons for this alarming dropout rate of secondary students (other factors include health and sanitation, girls education, early marriage, etc).
This is a daunting issue when an estimated half a billion people do not have any electricity. After-dark lighting and school sponsored night classes could greatly extend students' study hours and enhance their success on national exams. Asante Africa Foundation realized this need and partnered with a new school in the Kilimanjaro Region in Tanzania to provide electrical wiring so that the students would be able to study and attend night school in the evening hours.
St. Anne's Primary School is a private school with about 170 students (some of them boarding) with a focus on English medium. The school, effectively run by Headmistress Hedwig Bennett, is clean and the campus well manicured – a perfect environment for eager students. The community wanted the students to be able to continue the positive trajectory towards learning and increase the access to quality education for more children. The particular starter grant for which they were awarded was to get electricity from main grid to school block. This would mainly be used for increasing the dorm capability in addition to night school and computer labs (which were donated).
Electricity allowed the children to use computers, lights, CDs, etc. With electricity, schoolchildren can be exposed to new things and study longer during the day. This project was a great success and the school was first in the Standard 7 exam scores out of 487 schools in the region. We look forward to continued partnership with St. Anne's for future projects.
