LIVINGSTONE TANZANIA TRUST

Our Charity Partner: Livingstone Tanzania Trust

The Livingstone Tanzania Trust works with communities around Babati in northern Tanzania, promoting education and enterprise initiatives that are environmentally sensitive and sustainable. Their aim is to empower children and their families with the resources, skills and knowledge they need to break the cycle of poverty for themselves and build brighter futures with dignity and promise.

Simple initiatives can have a dramatic impact. Their mission is to work with the community and their stakeholders, supporting them to identify and tailor initiatives to suit their specific needs. By targeting their resources they maximise benefits and develop an understanding that ensures long-term solutions.

One such initiative is to address the ratio of books per student or as it is in Tanzania students per book. With an average of one textbook between 10 students (that is one book per 3 desks) learning becomes extremely challenging and teachers spend time copying material onto the blackboard rather than teaching.

The Priory School adopted this initiative because of the empathy that our students held for their fellow students in Babati. Having a love of books our students and teachers felt that they could get involved in changing the future of the children in Babati schools in this fashion.

We are thrilled to have been part of the process that brought the book/student ratio down to one book per desk per subject per year group for the Waangwaray Primary School. Because of our efforts over 400 students have access to books that can help them get an education that helps break the cycle of poverty and delivers a brighter future.

We are now on the road to repeating this achievement with the Managhat Community, a school in a more rural setting that suffers from a lack of books.

We would like to thank the staff, students and their parents for supporting this worthwhile charity.

If you would like more information about the charity please go to livingstonetanzaniatrust.com and if you would like to give directly to them, which enables them to claim gift aid, you can go to their page on the Virgin Money Giving site.