What is ICS’ connection with the Second Chance Education school in Moshi?

ICS has been involved with the Second Chance School for a few years now. Two things that I think are major of importance; one is improving the education system of Moshi and then just helping with the infrastructure of the school to make it a better place for the students to learn in.

When did the connection between the schools start?

That’s a good question. It was before I came, so I think you’d probably have to go to Mr. Cannings for more detail to the answer of that question.

What is your goal for the trip?

We have been asked by Mama Lucy at Second Chance school this year to work with, mainly with the Kindergarten class. They would like to start an English Kindergarten class at the school and our main purpose is to bring teaching materials to help that Kindergarten class.
 
Do you know any other sort of activities you will be doing there?

We’ve been asked to do a few things. One is to finish the plasterine of the main building. They’ve also asked us to make some teaching materials for them. One of their projects was asking us to build a chicken coop for them, but I don’t think we’ll be doing that one.

What do you know about the school (size, amount of students and age groups…etc)

The age group, it must be there from kindergarten and up. The school, when we will be there we will be on holiday so there will only be some of the boarding students that are still there. The main challenge is that at the school, they learned everything in Swahili, the local language, but then they have to write their exams in English. One of our purposes will be to help them translate their work into English.

What is the curriculum of the school like?

It’s Tanzanian curriculum, so I am not sure the details of it exactly. Like I said, we’ll be mainly working this time with the Kindergarten so we’ll just focus on basic: alphabet, numbers…

What exactly happens after the children are in the Second Chance Education School? Do they graduate or do they stay in their own village and educate?

I think there must be a mixture of both. I think some must stop at the school at a certain point in time, but others have to be going on because like I said, the older students, their main stress is learning everything in Swahili and then having to be able to write the exams in English at the end of the day.

Where will you be living?

For the first ten days, we’ll be staying at Hunny Badger Lodge. I haven’t been to Tanzania, to this area before, which from what I understand is very close to the school or part of the school grounds, so I’ll be staying there for the first bit and we can do all of our community and service work, pretty much twenty-four hours a day with them and then from there we go on to a safari. After that, we’re staying in Tanzania kind of out in the wild.

Are you happy about going with your family? Do you think it will be a nice family activity to do?

Yes, it is the Murray family vacation to Tanzania, isn’t it? Yeah, it will be good. It’s the type of experience that we would travel before, having lived in the developing world. It’s something we’re all used to. It should be a good experience for all three of us and taking our son as well out of the land of plenty here in Switzerland and back to the basics.

Is there anything you are really excited about?

To meet Mama Lucy and to see Second Chance School. I’ve heard so much about it in the planning stages, through people who have been there before, through Mr. Cannings…etc. I’m really looking forward to it, to meeting her, to know the school more and that whole experience of helping others. I think it will be very important for all of them. As well as, I can’t say I’m not excited about going on a safari!