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Tujatane Tales
Term 1
January - April 2007
Volume 11.1 |
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 By Joseph Musabani (Grade 7)
Africa Africa,
Our Mother Land
You a good continent
but there is no developments
And people are suffering
From many diseases
There is hunger, poverty and wars.
Africa is our other land
Please let's come together
And help in developing our continent
Oh mother, what can we do?
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OUR TIME AT TUJATANE TONGABEZI TRUST SCHOOL,
by Eliza Gore-Brown and Lotte
As volunteers of Tujatane Trust School we have felt very much at home right from the beginning. We have been given complete freedom to do what we want to do in the school day, whether it is teaching, reading, art, typing or games.
Our biggest project has been sorting out the English reading programme, which has been challenging since it is so vital to the children to read English well it has been very rewarding. We have been able to see the children improve during our stay.
Since both of us enjoy art too, we have been taking great advantage of the huge range of art materials sent to the school very kindly by sponsors, in the stockroom. The kids have loved the creative work including papier mache hot air balloons, butterflies, rockets using water bottles and self portraits (some of which were rather insulting!).
We have both been very happy at the school.
We have been able to bring whatever skills or ideas we can into the school life. Our time here (2 months) has gone extremely quickly and we will miss the friendliness of the staff and pupils.
READING SCHEME FOR TUJATANE
Thanks to both Eliza and Lotte who spent days sorting through reading books. They began by going through each book, checking they were in the correct levels and labelling them. A previous volunteer, Ann Kelsey had sorted the books according to grade and printed out lists, but finding these books proved quite a challenge! Eliza and Lotte also sorted out a supplementary reading scheme – for children to be able to stretch themselves within their levels. Each classroom was bought a locking cupboard (thanks to James Hill) and so the books were carefully numbered and labelled according to their grade and placed in the teacher’s cupboard. Files have been opened and each child has a page. At 7.30 each morning the reading begins. The children are listened to by the assistant teachers and the teachers and their progress is carefully monitored. Some children are also on a special phonics course to help them understand the sounds and split the words. We are thrilled with the progress made already – thanks to our two volunteers.
A NEW TELEVISION FOR TUJATANE
 Our television finally gave up, after almost 9 years – and a busy 9 years! It was taken into town to be fixed, but we found that each electrical item that was replaced blew up! Eventually we realised that it had had a good life and had given our children a huge learning experience – with all the videos and
DVDs sent from supporters from all over the world. We were fortunate enough
to have a couple visit us who very generously spent time on their holiday to go into Livingstone and buy us a new television! Thanks to Mike McCarthy and his family for this great contribution.
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  On 10th February Tujatane welcomed Grace, a qualified yoga instructor from the USA. Grace volunteered her time teaching the Grade 7 and Grade 5 class. The children LOVED it. Read their comments below…
GRADE SEVEN CHILDREN WRITE…
MATTHEWS says, “We enjoyed the exercise, made us to be strong. The exercise was hard a little bit.”
PRIDE says, “Grace was an intelligent teacher for yoga. She taught us different types namely warrior, tree and cobra. I enjoyed the yoga in such a way that if I am to see Grace I would stop concentrating in class. I would get sad when I could see the Grade 5s going down to the amphitheatre with her. I only wanted the Grade 7s to be doing yoga every day.”
NAKOKOMA says, “It was very interesting to learn such exercises. After doing exercises I felt very healthy.”
MISHECK writes, “Yoga is a very important exercise. You can learn to breathe without difficulties.”
KABEZA says, “Yoga is a very good exercise because it will give you energy in your body. We enjoyed the exercise and we thank Grace
 for this.”
GRADE FIVE CHILDREN WRITE…
EVERISTO says, “We have been learning yoga with Grace. We enjoyed doing yoga and she told us where it started. I started in India. She teaches us very well.”
MIYANDA says, “Yoga is very good for a human being because it makes somebody strong whether you are old you can look like you are not old.”
LAWRENCE says, “I was very happy when she was teaching us yoga.”
CHARLES says, “Thank you Grace for the yoga I am enjoying yoga. Me I am happy for the yoga.”
HIPPOS AT SCHOOL
  Due to the high water levels we found that the hippos visited our school at night and enjoyed eating our flowers!
Mischeck writes, “We did not see them but we saw footprints in the morning. Our school is near the Zambezi river so hippos will continue visiting our school.”
Paul Kamwi says, “They enjoyed the sweet, green grass.”
 In 1999 Henk donated his time to build a playground at Tujatane. We were thrilled to welcome him back to celebrate his 50th birthday with him.
Sophia from G5 writes, “Henk came to
visit our school with his wife and friends. He was very
happy to come and see us again. The performance group
performed very well.”
Yvonne says, “Henk made us a
playground. We go to play at the ground. It is good.” .
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GRADE 4 VISITS THE CROCODILE AND SNAKE FARM
 Our Grade 4 class went to see the crocodiles and snakes at the crocodile farm in Livingstone. Tongabezi kindly organised transport for this trip. It was an education for the children, where they had a to ur and were told about the lives of the crocodiles. They found that one was 50 years old.
Sydney, their teacher says,
“It was exciting as we had longed for the trip. It was productive and fruitful for the pupils as well as teachers. The pupils had a chance to hold a python and have it around their necks!”
BUILDING OF STAFF ROOM AND SCIENCE LAB BEGINS
  Andrew, a volunteer from New Zealand, arrived on 13th March to manage the building of our staffroom and science lab. The funding for the staff room has come from a UK corporate body. And the funding for the science lab from the Little family in the USA. For more photos of the beginning of the project, please check out our
building news at the end of this newsletter. Thanks so much to Andrew for all his hard work and success.
HIV/AIDS SENSITISATION
As a school last term we embarked on sensitisation talks about HIV/AIDS for parents, teachers and the local community. We continue to hold these sessions every Thursday afternoon. They focus on issues surrounding the importance of protecting oneself from the pandemic by abstaining, being faithful to one’s partner, using condoms for those who cannot abstain, and lots more. In addition the focus is on going for VCT in order to know your status. We have embraced the local community in this life-saving campaign inviting them to join our Thursday sessions. All funded by Dance For Life in Chicago, USA.
On 22nd February we had a Mobile Voluntary Counselling in the neighbouring Simonga Village (our local village) organised by a professional group from Livingstone. There was a great turn up from the village. All the upper primary children from Tujatane attended, and our poets performed their poem on HIV/AIDS. We had talks, questions, performances, drumming and dancing, and at the end of the programme there was a chance for people to go for VCT. A total of 20 people went; among these were members of staff from our school. The response was indeed overwhelming. “This was far more than we expected,” one of the counsellors said (and in fact they ran out of reagents for testing). Due to public demand, we hope to organise for a couple more MVCTs (Mobile
Voluntary Counselling and Testing) in the future. For local people to find transport into town and go to a testing centre is quite an ordeal. Having a mobile one, with experienced counsellors come to our village – made it much easier for people to go for a test.
SOME G7 CHILDREN SAY:
Paul Malambo says, “I learnt a lot of things and asked questions
on HIV/AIDS.”
Brian says, “We learnt about
destroying children’s education and it was nice to learn
that.”
Piet says, “We were divided into two groups, adults and children. I was in the children’s group and I enjoyed learning. We learnt that we should abstain, work hard in schools and we should know our diet.”
Antony writes, “I learn a lot because I was free to ask questions as we were children alone.”
Paul Kamwi says, “We learn how HIV can transmit from one to another, and how someone can be healthy with HIV.”
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NATAAZ TRAINING
WORKSHOP
On 3rd March our performing arts group were invited to a
workshop to learn more about performing drama and dance and about
script writing. Phinias Mweetwa writes, “We
learnt that acting is not pretending, and we learnt that drama is
doing. We also learnt how to write a story and a basic script. We
were 9 pupils and 2 teachers.” Paul
Malambo writes, “Nataaz skills training
workshop was very good for us. We were told how to write poems that
have meanings.”
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FIRST AID COURSE
All five teachers plus two assistants attended a three day course on
first aid in Livingstone. It was specifically aimed at covering
children-related first aid and was run by MARS (Medical Air Rescue
Service). Our staff are now qualified to deal with basic emergencies
at school. Being 17km from Livingstone with no public transport it
is important for staff members to be able to give the first stage of
help if any accidents occur.
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Fiji Friends Visit Us
In February we had a visit from a family from Fiji.
Gavin De Becker and his five sons arrived and we held a special
assembly on the amphitheatre for them where our
 children
performed some cultural dances. We thank Gavin and his family who
bought us a new keyboard and a printer from Livingstone during their
visit.
Children from G5 wrote: “they told us about Fiji and we
told them about Africa. We sang our National Anthem and then they
sang their National Anthem.”
“They were very friendly with us and they told us about
Fiji where they come from. They gave us cookies. I only remember one
word in Fiji – ‘bula’ which means hello. It was great to be with
them. They are so friendly people.”
“They asked us some questions and even us we asked them
some questions. We were very happy to meet them. We ate some
biscuits with cream in the middle.”
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OUR CLASSES
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NO. & AGES |
US SUPPORTERS can send
their contributions through Cogitare Foundation, in New York.
www.cogitarefoundation.org. They are a tax exempt
foundation which allows your total contribution to be sent through
to Tujatane, avoiding any charges. |
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Preschool & Reception
Grade 2
Grade 4
Grade 5
Grade 7 |
42 children, 3-7 years
22 children, 7-9 years
20 children, 8-11 years
24 children, 9-12 years
22 children, 11-16 years |
Please note: Barclays Bank
charges us $US30 to process each cheque we receive. To avoid
this and ensure that your entire donation benefits the children,
please send any donations by bank transfer to the school account or
direct to the UK school charity. If you wish to make a
contribution, please contact
vanessa@tongabezi.com
for details. Many thanks for your help.
UK Charity Status "The
Charitable Trust for The Tongabezi Trust School"
Registration number 1096710. Email:
jessopprice@hotmail.co.uk.
Click here
for details on making a donation through the UK charity.
US Charity Donations
"The Cogitare Foundation"
Comments/feedback welcomed.
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