Matumaini is a Swahili word for ‘Hope. Being the largest of its kind in Tanzania, this is the only holistic public primary school for physically disabled children offering both an education (formal and informal) and physical therapy within its confines. It operates a workshop for manufacturing and repairing walking appliances and chairs for the children. Salvation Army Primary is a registered government primary school with Boarding that has existed since 1967.
Salvation Army Currently houses 200 students from grade 1 to 7 drawn from communities around Tanzania. It has 28 staff members from the Salvation Army and 15 teachers provided by the Government.
We will be working with the school over a three year period to increase capacity and improve.
We are working with Matumaini in delivering the following projects:
Matumaini primary school has been ranked the last in the past several years in their grade 7 results performance. A major reason for this is not the lack of ability of the students but rather the financial situations at home. Usually in June- July, schools are closed for the summer. However, with students coming from all over the country and often from very poor families, many children often are unable to come back to school in time for revision and exams which usually take place in September. This is because parents are unable to afford the transport cost of sending the child back to school and often times, they return too late to catch up with their peers or do their exams.
Classrooms for ALL is supporting all 22 students of Matumaini student to stay in school during the holidays to help them catch up and enable them to perform better in their exams thus giving them a chance to a secondary education. We are supporting them by:
We are paying 7 teachers and 3 carers at the school to ensure that summer catch up classes continue as usual . Paying teachers will allow them to run the summer catch up classes for the kids thus helping them better prepare for their grade 7 exams. We continue to pay the matrons and carers to ensure the children continue to be supported even while on school break.
We are also supporting the feeding program ensuring the children have 3 meals a day, 7 days a week for 25 days while in school during the school break. We hope this shall help in keeping the students at school and learning, ready to tackle their grade 7 exams in September.
What used to be the library at Salvation Army is now a staff room as the staff at the school have no dedicated space to call their own. A a result of this, students are no longer going to the library to access books to learn. The reconstruction of these two buildings is set to take place from July 2021.