Career Day Inspirations

Editor's Note: The Office of Student Development at JBFC's Joseph and Mary School hosted its first ever Career Day for all our secondary school students. Based on a survey they gave to all secondary students to identify the careers that the students were most curious about, the Office of Student Development invited an engineer (Ms. Neema Mosha), an accountant/business woman (Ms. Ester Jackson), and the Director of the Bugando College of Nursing (Mr. Kija Malale), to speak to the secondary students. Joseph and Mary School students Leticia and Athumani presented certificates to the guests at the end of their presentations. This blog has been edited slightly by the JBFC administration from Leticia’s writings about this experience.

Careers are the goals and ambitions that one has to reach or fulfill in their life.

From the program that has recently been conducted at our school (Career Day) - where they bring people with different careers - they helped students explain about their careers, how they reached the top, and what we should do to reach there. Our speakers to the program were of different careers; we had a businesswomen/accountant, an engineer, and a doctor.

All of the speakers taught us and advised us very well, but the one I liked the most was the business women because she started by giving us a real example about her life, how she has been experiencing different things and how she copes with the challenges that she does meet when doing her business. Although she has had many troubles, she never once thought of backing down. She still moves on and her dream is to be the most famous business lady in the world. This is the thing that inspired me the most because my dream is to be a business woman.



I learned different things from those three professionals. First, I learned to never give up - when you start something, always do it until the end and don't [back] away from it. Second, I learned when you do things by specific plans and goals like when you really want to reach something just go for it. When it is your destiny to finish an activity, don't worry about people's words and how they want to fight you from reaching your specific goals. Another thing I learned from them is not to follow others/have peer pressure. For example, don't always listen to what your friends are telling you and follow it. Also, I learned that with specific goals you have to have a good attitude too. You have to be confident, a great leader, and believe in yourself. Lastly, when you want to be somebody, you have to do and practice that thing whenever you have time.

This program was important because it is helping all the students understand in their future careers what they really have to do and learn to reach where others are now. The speakers are helping us to understand ourselves better and what careers we are trying to be in. It is also giving us some experiences on how to do our careers in the future life. It is really encouraging for us to be like they are because when we see them and how they are, we really are jealous. This makes one struggle even more to reach to the peak as that person who is already a professional.

Guest Blogger, Leticia, is a Form 2 student at Joseph and Mary Secondary School and a JBFC Residential Girl. She is a member of the JBFC Football club, Girls Government, and is currently ranked 1st in her class.

Spreading the Joy of Reading

Something magical has happened at Joseph and Mary’s library in 2016- and I am not just talking about Zai’s love for Harry Potter (though that is pretty magical!).

First, a little background. JBFC offers quality, affordable education to our surrounding community, one of the central pillars in our holistic approach to development, through the Joseph and Mary school. From the littlest learners in pre-school through the young adults in Form 4 (equivalent of 11th grade), JBFC is changing lives and helping young Tanzanians reach their educational goals.

In order to help give our students a competitive advantage in what is fast becoming a global economy, Joseph and Mary students are taught all of their subjects in English from their first days on our campus. One of our favorite tools in helping our students learn English is to instill them with a love for books. In order to do so, JBFC has built an on-campus library and stocked it with over 3,700 books for book-lovers of all ages, thanks to our Book by Book Campaign. It's the only lending library in our village, in fact the only library for miles around in any direction.

Joseph and Mary’s library has been popular with staff and students since its grand opening in the summer of 2013. But this year sparks have flown, light-bulbs have gone off, and Magic School Buses have started soaring beyond our wildest dreams.

At the end of last year and the beginning of this year, JBFC administrators and school staff began brainstorming ways to expand the impact of our library/literacy programs and to make our services more readily available to a broader section of our community. At the same time, visitors from Sarah Lawrence College in New York proposed the idea of starting a “Family Literacy Program” based on projects that they had run in various parts of the world in the past.

And, just like that, Joseph and Mary’s library became magic.

Since January’s push-start from Sarah Lawrence College professor Kim Ferguson, Joseph and Mary’s Dean of Students, Samo, has organized family literacy workshops for students and their families from six different grade levels at our school. Over the course of a five-week program for each grade, students and their primary caregivers attend a weekly Wednesday-night family literacy session at our library from 4:00pm to 6:00pm.

With the goals of promoting literacy at home, encouraging parents to actively participate in their children’s educations, and expanding accessibility to Joseph and Mary’s library, families gather together weekly for various story-telling games, art activities (bookmark making, for example), and a community dinner. Samo, along with our Literacy Coordinator and various classroom teachers, help instill parents and caregivers with the tools they need to support our students at home. On average, roughly 20 parents come per session, including many JBFC staff members.

Our students and their families aren’t the only people who have gotten a little bit of magic out of the Family Literacy Program. As part of their required community service for school, Joseph and Mary’s Form 2 students have played a major role in the development, implementation, and follow-up of the Family Literacy Program since its start. Assisting with everything from pre- and post-surveying, translation, food preparation, and even providing child-care to parents with young children, our Form 2 students have become experts in this community-based initiative.

Having completed the five-week program for pre-school, kindergarten, first grade, second grade, third grade, and Form 4, 2016 has been a successful year. Mr. Samo, Mr. Simon, and our Form 2 students, however, have a different idea. With the end of the year fast approaching, our Family Literacy Team will be completing the program for fourth graders and fifth graders in 2016 before picking up the program again next year.

One measure of the success of a program is the amount of community buy-in that it gets. On this point, our Family Literacy Program has been a home-run. I asked Samo, our Dean of Students and the person in charge of the program, what his favorite part was and got an immediate, playful chuckle from him. “The best part? The best part is to see the parents come, listen, and also realize ‘Oh! We are part and parcel in educating our kids!’”

If you are interesting in donating books or dollars to our Book by Book Campaign, please review the guidelines by clicking here!

Guest Blogger, Seth Diemond, is JBFC's Chief Operating Officer in Tanzania. 

Staff Spotlight: Mr. Fred

Editor's Note: In continuation of our Staff Spotlight segments, JBFC would like to introduce our supporters to Mr. Fred, a man that has been a central figure at Joseph and Mary Primary School for several years. Mr. Fred is the Head of our Primary School, and also teaches the 7th Grade.

How long have you been working at JBFC?:

I've been working at JBFC for 7 years.

What is your position at JBFC?:

I am the Head Teacher of Primary School and Grade 7 teacher.

What are your responsibilities at JBFC?:

As a class teacher, I have to teach the subject daily and help the struggling students in my glass by guiding and counseling. I also have to make sure the class is arranged and clean. Grade 7 is the ending grade in Primary School here in Tanzania, so I have to prepare my students for the National Exam. Right now we have a 100% pass rate!

As the Head of Primary School, I have to supervise all the activities in the school: Teachers' duties, cleanliness, etc. I also need to attend the government's meeting representing our school, prepare the budget for the whole year, report all the activities carried in the school to my superiors on a weekly basis, recruit new teachers when necessary, enroll new students to our school...and much more!

Why did you want to be a teacher?

When I was young, I went to school and really liked my teachers who were also guiding me. I was truly inspired by them. Also, I like taking care of the students at school. Being a teacher you also serve the community.

What is your favorite part of your job?

My favorite part is teaching. I really enjoy it because I like talking to the kids. I like to involve them in the lessons so they can be more active and participative.

What is the biggest challenge you face?:

The biggest challenge is, without any doubt, the pressure we (teachers and students) feel with the National Exam. I feel all this pressure because I want all my students to pass in the best possible way, so more and more students want to be enrolled in our school. Also, I feel pressure because the parents of the students want their kids to pass for them to join Secondary School. Same with the government that wants all the students to perform well. At the end, there are a lot of factors around me and I can feel all that pressure.

Pam Kohlhoff Blog

Editor's Note: Among JBFC's many visitors this past summer, was Pam Kohlhoff, a teacher from the Bronxville School in New York. The Bronxville School has had a long-standing relationship with JBFC, bringing groups of students to our campus in Tanzania since 2009. We have many wonderful supporters from the Bronxville area, and were so thrilled that Pam Kohlhoff was able to visit this year after hearing about JBFC for so long. While on campus, Pam hosted a Writer's Workshop for the 3rd Grade students from Joseph and Mary Primary School. Here is her story.

As a third grade teacher at the Bronxville School in New York I’ve had the chance to learn about JBFC through the testimony of local students and families who have close ties with the JBFC family. For several years now I dreamed of visiting the school and this summer my dream became a reality. Along with two rising seniors from Bronxville High School, I spent fourteen days at JBFC and I must say it was one of the highlights of my entire teaching career of 31 years!

When asked what I wanted to do while visiting, I knew the answer instantly. I wanted to hear these kids tell their stories. I wanted to learn as much as I could about their lives, family, school life and culture. So I decided to “launch" a Writer's Workshop based on work done by the well-respected researcher, educator and writer Lucy Calkins. The philosophy behind a Writer’s Workshop and Lucy’s work is that children should generate personal pieces, using material from their own lives.

As I prepared for the trip, I thought about some of the texts I’ve used over the years to motivate and inspire students to think about what makes a good personal narrative. Titles such as Thunder Cake by Patricia Polacco and Come on Rain by Karen Hess were among the books I carried from Bronxville to Tanzania knowing I would offer them as models for the children.

Once there, it was so much fun to watch the faces of the kids as they sat on the floor in group. I especially loved how they wanted to read and reread the books throughout the week. After each day, I donated a book to my host teacher, Judy, and she was extremely grateful.

Lucy and Nan, the Bronxville rising seniors who worked on this project were so excited to bring materials to the JBFC so each student could have their own “notebook”—a sacred place to keep their stories. I was thrilled, too! We handed out traditional black and white marble composition books and materials such as magazine photos and stickers so the kids could “personalize” them. This was VERY exciting for the students. Lucy and Nan even brought a Polaroid Camera along so they could take pictures of each student and then add the photo to the cover of their book for the ultimate personalizing touch.

Throughout the week, we read and wrote stories about people, places and small moments that we consider important and memorable. The last step was asking kids to share their writing with the group. This was something new for them. At the end of each writing period, students volunteered to share their story and had the privilege of sitting in the “Author’s Chair.” At first, they were very shy and hesitant. But by the end of the first session, the kids were so excited they were all begging for a turn!

As I look back at my time at JBFC, I keep thinking of how proud the students were to tell their story and to realize that they had an authentic audience. During my last mini lesson with the kids, I asked them to promise to write often and to realize that everything they have to say counts. I have a feeling, one day, I just might see a published book displayed in a library or bookstore written by someone in Miss Judy’s third grade class at JBFC.

Guest Blogger, Pam Kohlhoff, teaches the 3rd Grade at the Bronxville School in New York.

Experience JBFC

Traveling to our campus is often a life-changing experience for our volunteers.  You can check our updates on Facebook and read the blogs about the events on campus, even start to recognize some of the girls, but seeing it for yourself is an entirely different experience.  This year we have welcomed 150 volunteers to our campus. For many individuals though, the thought of traveling to rural Africa alone is a little daunting. 

That’s why I am so excited that we are trying something new in 2017.  We’ll be offering three Experience JBFC Trips, unique opportunities to see the campus for yourself.  Participants will travel with a JBFC staff person from the U.S. with a small group of other JBFC supporters and spend 10 days exploring our campus and volunteering.

Volunteers will have the opportunity to get to know the girls, read with a reading buddy for most days of the trip, serve in our dining hall and on our farm, and experience all that JBFC has to offer.  JBFC staff will share about the opportunities and challenges that the organization is facing, as well as some of the exciting programs and innovations we are working on. 

No trip to Tanzania would be complete without seeing the Serengeti first hand.  Volunteers can go on a one-day safari from JBFC’s campus during their stay, or stay a few days longer and dive into all the Serengeti has to offer. 

These trips are open to individuals, families and even high school students.  It’s the perfect chance to take that trip to Africa you’ve always been thinking about, or to get a chance to meet the girl you sponsor in person.  Since you’ll be traveling with our staff, you won’t have to worry about any of the details of getting there, and you can start enjoying your trip right away. 

Trips will take place in February, May and July of 2017 and spaces are limited.  If you’re interested, I’d love to talk with you more about this opportunity and help you get signed up for this incredible adventure.  We truly hope everyone can have a chance to experience JBFC for themselves, and would love to have you part of these first few trips!

Guest Blogger, Diana Booren, is JBFC's Volunteer Coordinator. If you are interested in going on an Experience JBFC Trip in 2017, please contact her at: dbooren@jbfc-online.org