Since 2005 Urspringschule is helping with the development of a school for Massai children in Tanzania. Many students, teachers and parents produce e.g. Christmas cookies and other Christmas items which are sold at the Christmas Market in Schelklingen. There are also concerts and other events that help to collect money for the project. Gerhard Zielke who is working with the school maintenance team in Urspringschule is the contact person from Urspringschule. He regularly visits the school and helps with the building activities and he also makes sure, that the money collected is used for the development of the school. He reports back to the school community after the visits at parents meetings and in the school assembly.

 
The life of the Massai people

The Massai are a nomadic people, who live in the steppe in the north of Tanzania and in the southern parts of Kenya. For a long time the proud and martial people lived without any influence from the outside in their traditional way of life. They are the only people that are able to live under the scant conditions of the region. Nowadays their environment changes due to climate change. The changes lead to longer dry periods between the rainy seasons, which are getting longer every year. If the rainy season fails to appear, e.g. in 2005/2006, the consequences are dramatic. The flowing water body dries up totally and the basis of the existence for man and animal disappears totally.

As in many other African countries AIDS is one of the major problems in Tanzania. The infection spreads with a rapidly increasing pace all over the country and reaches even the most remote areas. The Massai are due to their frequent change of sexual partners especially affected by the problem. The local government is not interested in solving the problem and a social security system as we know it in Europe doesn’t exist. So the Massai face an uncertain future.

 

Insufficient numbers of schools in Tanzania

It goes without saying in our countries that children visit a school and get a good education. In Tanzania exists a law about compulsory education (7 years in primary education).

This is undermined by the insufficient numbers of schools, especially in remote regions as the Massai-Steppe. Children either have to walk for miles to get to a school or they can’t visit a school because it doesn’t exist. Many children grow up without ever seeing a school from inside. In 2005 the project of building a school for the Massai children started in the steppe. What came into existence since then is enormous for African circumstances.
Meanwhile there is a primary school for 300 Massai children, who are absolutely eager to benefit from the chance of education offered to them. For this privilege the children walk more than 10 km every day to school.

Everyone needs a perspective in life

A lot of things changed in the last years for the people in Loltepes/Massai Country. Due to the development work new chances for the future were created. The slogan is: “Help people to help themselves.”
To give the people an alternative some agricultural projects were started. To be able to maintain the machines etc. education is absolutely necessary. Foreign aid is often a run along the edge and it takes a long breath to reach the set aim. We, as members of Urspringschule have decided to put in the famous drop in the ocean – or as the German proverb states: the famous drop on a hot stone. And one realizes how important a drop of water can be while visiting Massai country.


 

 

Many persons have already helped to realize the planned project. Trustworthy partners in Tanzania, living in the region make sure that the donations are used responsible.
The donations from our school helped to buy school books, desks and chairs, building material and food during the last extremely long dry season.

In 2011 the school got a wind pump to guarantee water supply all year round. Meanwhile the school offers a warm meal a day to more than 300 children. The first children have now finished primary school and are due to their good results able to visit a secondary school in the next town more than 100 km away. It was even possible to convince the Massai men to work themselves on the building site for their school.

 

– thank you very much for helping the Massai children!

In March 2013 during a students’ meeting of the Comenius Project “Dwindling Resources – Growing Challenges” the students and teachers from Urspringschule Schelklingen and from Heilig Hartcollege Waregem and from Breidholt College Reykjavik organized a sponsored running event for the Massai school and managed to collect more than 1700 Euros for the school. Thank you to all sponsors and to all participating students and teachers!
Meanwhile the amount of the donations for the Massai School has reached more then 4543 Euros. Watch out for the thermometer.

The Massai Project in Tanzania is well under way. With the results of various charity activities in the partner schools in Germany, Estonia and England books and writing material for the children and a generator for the water pump were bought. The school wants to build an extra house for children that can’t go home every day – a sort of boarding school. With our help they could start laying the fundament for the new building.
Another positive effect is, that the elders of the Massai tribe realize, that going to school and getting some educations is fundamental for the survival of their tribe and the men started to help with the building activities.
The school is meanwhile very popular in the region and many more children would like to come. But there is still the problem of getting teachers who want to work there, far away from any sort of town. This means our subsidy might help to convince teachers to go there when they experience the help from outside.