Recently we had the opportunity to work with Weronika Cichosz, an employee of James Jones and Sons Forres, to build football connections with a city in Tanzania. Over the festive period Weronika travelled to Morogoro to visit a team of missionaries who run one of their schools there.
Weronika works with the clubs Vice-Chairman; Scott Thomson who wanted to offer some gifts from Forres Area Soccer7s for the school children in Tanzania. We then asked if the children might like some of our previous season’s strips and a few new footballs to play with, which Weronika said was a fantastic idea. We met up at the clubs’ pavilion and sorted out some strips and footballs for Weronika to take over with her on her travels.
This is what Weronika had to say on her return from Tanzania.
The school has a ‘pre-school’ class, which they affectionately simply call baby. This is for children between the ages of 2.5 and 5 years old. Then from 5-13 they run the primary school programme.
There are some 900 students overall, 40 of which (typically coming from very far or very poor families) stay in the boarding house.
The school employs 32 teachers so as you can imagine – they have their hands full!
The school has a large garden in the back were tomatoes, bananas, mangos and other basic fruit and vegetables grow – even some chickens and goats are kept (which double down as cheap grass cutting service during holidays!). There’s also a very ferocious guard dog patrolling the grounds – Stella – who likes to intimidate newcomers by asking them for belly rubs.
The children receive meals at the school’s outdoor kitchen every day, which is further encouragement for families to send their kids to school rather than have them working in the fields. To prepare for the first week of classes, we spent a morning sorting through 100kg of tomatoes which may last for about two weeks.
The children receive a comprehensive education in Swahili, English, maths, history, sciences, arts, music and many more.
Thomas, who you can see below with a Soccer 7s strip, oversees 5 such schools in Tanzania, Kenya, and Uganda.
It has taken many years and many people of good will to build this school up to what it looks like now. At present works are underway to expand the classroom space to accommodate for the 1000 children which are expected to enrol this year.
Among the surrounding area this school with its colourful walls looks like a peaceful haven for kids to run around and play. There’s a football pitch (of sorts) with some goal posts (of sorts) but they haven’t been making much use of it because they haven’t been able to get decent balls. I’m sure you’ll be aware but a seemingly small gesture from yourselves will bring a big smile on many wee faces – and probably annoy the neighbours with the noise.
The country of Tanzania is without a doubt, a beautiful one, the nature and wildlife provide an unforgettable experience for the senses. However, an even deeper beauty there is that of the people. Sounds of rejoicing and celebration are never ending and something that was particularly obvious is that Tanzanians look after their things; they take great care and pride in what they have so something we can be sure of is that these kits and footballs will be in use for a very long time.
The club is now looking to arrange for more strips to be sent over, so one day we might see a big derby match in Tanzania between Maclean’s Highland Bakery v Murdoch Brothers Butchers or Mundole Taxi’s v Tom Ross & Sons.
Team Soccer7s
