Samumba is a small village in Singida, one of the poorest areas in Tanzania on the East African savannah. Samumba has for long time been a “forgotten” place that lacks most facilities, such as school and health services, that people take for granted elsewhere.

Chiku Ali (www.chiku.no) comes from this Tanzanian village. After studying at the National College of Art in Tanzania and University of Bergen in Norway, she now works in Bergen, and is engaged in voluntary work for development for children and women in Tanzania and elsewhere.

Chiku has worked together with warm-hearted, generous friends in Rafiki – Norsk Folkehjelp, Strandvik, Fusa, Hystad skole, Stord, friends in Lofthus, Os, Bergen, Unneland, Haugesund and elsewhere in Norway, to build a primary school for children from Samumba and eleven other nearby villages.

The school started enrolling children in 2007, and as of today, approximately 500 children are studying at the school in 7 different grades, standard 1- 7, primary school (corresponding to the Norwegian “barneskole”). In the first cohort (kull) that graduated in 2014, 30 out of 40 children successfully continued to secondary school. Among the successful students, 17 were girls and 13 boys, which is an important achievement to prevent early marriages.

The school has a total of 8 class-rooms, one teachers’ house, two toilets for girls, two for boys and one for teachers are ready. Still, we have not finished building the kitchen. A water well has been built, but it is somewhat distant from the school and we need to do more work to get the water connected to the school. There is a nice football field at the school.

The Tanzanian government has provided a total of 8 teachers to the village, and the government is committed to pay salaries for these teachers.

If you are interested in helping us with this project, you may donate any amount of money you want to the Singidani project account:

• Project account: 1506.91.88777 (DNB) – IBAN no NO4215069188777, BIC/SWIFT: DNBANOKKXXX) Please write Samumba in comments and leave your details / email so we can provide you with progress report of the project
• VIPPS number: 532090

Please also visit the site for our proposed Singidani Infectious Disease Centre in Singida town.