Steve Cram's Celebrity Golf Day in aid of COCO
Do you fancy yourself as a keen golfer? Join Steve Cram, COCO and a host of celebrities for our golf day on the 15th June at the magnificent De Vere Slaley Hall in Northumberland. For more details and to enter a team please click here.
Watoto: February - Meet Sikista
Tuesday 16th February 2010
Welcome to COCO's first monthly newsletter, Watoto. Watoto means 'children' in Swahili and each month we'll be inviting you to meet one of the children from our projects. This month we'd like you to meet Sikista.
Due to extreme poverty, many families in Tanzania cannot afford to pay for their children to go to secondary school; the money they earn is sometimes not enough to even buy food, never mind school fees, uniforms, books and pencils.
In response, COCO runs a sponsorship programme which sends 134 children to secondary school. Sikista Magagula is one of the sponsored students and attends Lupunga Secondary School in Songea, Tanzania.
Sikista is an orphan and was accepted onto the sponsorship programme in 2007. Sikista's favourite subjects are History, Geography and Kiswahi and she likes to play netball in her spare time. her academic progress is improving every year but her duties at home mean finding time to study can be difficult. COCO's Coordinator for Southern Tanzania, Oswin Mahundi, spoke to Sikista who said:
"I am living with my Grandfather, I have to cook for him and do everything at home. This reduces my time of studying and that is why I have never got an average of B or above, you need 61% to get a B. My Grandfather is very old and now he is very sick, I will be sad if he dies. I promise to my sponsors that I will pass my exams and I shall become a nurse or a doctor."
COCO raised £5,190 in pledges at the Red Ribbon Ball in December. This funding has gone straight out to Tanzania and we are very proud to be supporting 134 children to achieve their dream of attending secondary school.
The Big Question: Why are many children in Tanzania unable to attend secondary school?
Due to extreme poverty many families struggle to send their children to secondary school. A family in Mpandangindo Village earns an average of £150 per year and it costs about £70 to send one child to secondary school in the first year. It is likely that a family will have more than one child and they also have other things to pay for such as food, transport, medicine and clothes so spending almost half of their annual income on one child's education is simply not feasible for many families.
In addition to the levels of poverty, there is also a lack of secondary schools in Tanzania. In the past decade, many African countries made primary school free for all children in line with the Millennium Development Goal: to achieve universal primary education.
Although this initiative was aimed at improving education, it has meant that the number of students who are completing primary education has increased so much that the capacity of secondary schools is insufficient to cope with the demand.
In Tanga ward, where COCO work in Tanzania, there are 9 primary schools producing an average of 450 students in total each year, however, there are only two secondary schools in the ward which together can take an average of 240 students each year.
This means that for 210 children, there are no places at secondary school. They have no choice but to go home, work on the farm or go to the streets and hope to find some work or if not, beg.
If you would like to find out more about sponsoring a child please contact laura@coco.org.uk. Thank you.
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