Lumumba School

James

While most previous S4Si scholars have been selected from Ben Bella school, this year we've decided to expand our program to another school called Lumumba, which is located about a mile and a half outside of Stone Town. Lumumba is considered the best public school in Zanzibar, and it selects students from all around the islands to attend starting in Form I, the first year of secondary school, based on their test scores at the end of their primary education. To us, these students seem to exemplify the types we want to help -- they are excellent students with a proven track record of success, but often with limited means to continue their education.

We conducted our interviews there today, of 7 girls from Form II, and we were quite impressed with the English and their ability to convey complex thoughts and ideas about education, corruption, poverty, and the world around them. We will be interviewing students at Ben Bella next week, after which we'll do our best to select this year's nine S4Si scholars, including 2 from UVA and one business student sponsored by Delta Sigma Pi, UNC's business fraternity. We'll do our best to keep updating on our progress over the next week. We definitely have our work cut out for us to pick the scholars from such a deserving group.

No power!

James

We apologize for being so tardy in posting on this blog, but we have a good excuse. Our power went out over a week ago and hasn't returned, so we're a bit hard-pressed to find a reliable source of internet and time to write. We don't expect power to return for another several weeks ... possibly up to a month or two, which is after I return home. Still, we'll do our best to keep you posted about our activities with S4Si in Zanzibar!