Hey (Saint) Jude

By Genevieve Aldridge - Work Experience Student

Hi my name's Genevieve I'm doing work experience at The Body Shop with the Values team. Adam asked me to share my experience of visiting The School of St. Jude in Arusha, Tanzania last January, so here it is:

The School of St. Jude was set up in 2002 by Gemma Sisia, an Australian woman from NSW and its’ aim is to ‘fight poverty through education’ the school relies totally on donations from individuals, businesses and fundraising events.

Every year, thousands of children are tested for their academic ability and for those who pass, their background is checked meaning only the brightest and poorest students are given a place at the school. The school caters for everything the children need including uniform, books, boarding houses, buses, meals, clean water, medical attention and obviously a top quality education.

A normal class in Tanzania would contain a blackboard, some chalk and over 50 students, in comparison, St. Jude’s classes average 25 students, numerous textbooks, competent teachers and even computers!

When I visited the school, the first thing that struck me was the vibrancy; the brightly painted play equipment, the gleaming colourful buses, and of course hundreds of children running around, shouting, dancing and singing. We ate lunch with the students (rice and beans) and helped out in their art classes, all the craft supplies are scraps or donations or in the library, which holds hundreds of donated books!

After school we visited the boarding house, built by locals. Rukia and Margret, students at the school and self-appointed tour guides and lead us through around one km of banana plantation before we arrived at the boarding house. They proudly displayed their spotless room, study rooms, washrooms and introduced us to their matron.

The next day, we visited Margret’s house, it was a two room mud brick house, one room to sleep in, and a living room. There was no electricity or running water and chickens were scratching the dirt floor ‘because they eat the bugs’ she explained. Margret’s father is a teacher at the local school and her mother takes care of the house. Margret tells us ‘I was so happy I got in, otherwise, I would have no education because my family cannot afford to send us (her and her four brothers) all to school’.

To compare her opinion to that of a typical Australian ‘school sucks, I hate it’ attitude was sad. We have so many opportunities, yet we continually throw them away, when there are thousands of children across the globe who’d give everything for a decent education.

The boarding house opened in 2008 and was much appreciated by students and parents. This boarding house means students no longer have to wake up at 4:30am and walk down mountains to their bus stop, do their homework by candlelight, go to bed hungry, or share a bed with several relatives. The school has employed hundreds of locals and given thousands of children an opportunity to create a better life for themselves and their family.

It was amazing experience, seeing how big a difference one woman can make; Gemma’s work has pulled thousands of children out of extreme poverty and given them the skills to help their family out of poverty too. It was very humbling to see how hard they worked and how happy they always were, despite the hardships they faced.

Returning to Australia was such a shock, seeing all the wasted materials and hearing so much negativity took some getting used to, as did the lack of friendliness and generosity among strangers. It was saddening to realize how often we are dissatisfied or ungrateful with what we have, when there are millions who struggle through each day just to survive.

Please support The School of St. Jude.