Rotary clubs team up to help an African school

The Rotary club of Eyemouth & District combined with the Rotary club of Dunbar to help improve the science teaching facilities at Noonkodin Secondary School, Eluwai, Tanzania.

Eluwai is located in the mountains above the town of Monduli. It has a population of approximately 3,000 people spread over a large area. The residents are predominantly Maasai, although other ethnic groups such as Arusha, Meru, Chagga and Pare are also represented. 

There is no mains electricity supply or paved road. 

There are many challenges in providing education to rural populations in Tanzania. Science and technology, in particular, are usually taught in a purely theoretical way due to the absence of suitable facilities and equipment for practical teaching. The result is that many pupils merely memorise paragraphs of text from books and reproduce them in examinations, gaining pass grades without ever obtaining any real grasp of the principles of science or its application to daily life.

The aims of the Noonkodin Secondary School include providing affordable, high quality secondary education as a foundation for further study or to help gain employment. The school raises awareness of the importance and practical applications of local knowledge and traditional skills. It encourages students to research and document their own heritage as well as giving students an understanding of contemporary world issues.

The school encourages communication between students from different tribes and nations, with a view to sharing best practices and learning from others' experience, through international summer/winter school programmes and the use of information technology.

A large science laboratory building with adjacent preparation room was built according to Tanzanian Government specifications in 2005-06 as a condition for the national registration of the school.  However, due to a shortage of funds the school had been unable to equip the building as a laboratory. 

Students with no access to laboratory facilities sit 'Alternative to Practical' papers drawing diagrams of apparatus they will probably never use or even see for themselves.  Some, incredibly, have never even experienced the feel of an ice cube in their hand or even seen a Bunsen burner!

The Rotary Clubs of Eyemouth & Dunbar joined together to raise funds to equip the science laboratory at the School with benches, cupboards, a gas system, sinks with full plumbing, a fume room and a solar electricity system, and provide the apparatus and reagents needed to fulfil the requirements of the National Curriculum in Biology, Chemistry and Physics.

A total sum of £6,595 was raised by the joint effort of the two clubs, which also included a Rotary District Foundation Grant of  £1,320.