Helping Tloma Primary School

Who Are We?

Our friend Sulle.Tloma Giving was created after four strangers visited Tloma Primary School (at four different times) and met a teacher, Bertin Sulle. The charm and enthusiasm of the children combined with Sulle’s passion and love for the community instilled a deep desire to help the children, and the community Tloma Primary School serves.

Those four strangers; Winona Perry, Dr. Jim Swallow, Dr. Jonna Holland, and Stan Thomas began to organize financial aid for Tloma School. Eventually they realized a formal entity needed to be established so in 2020 the Tloma Giving corporation was created.

Tloma Giving is a U.S. non-profit educational and charitable corporation under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Service Code. It provides support for health, education, social, and economic development of the low-income and underserved Tloma region in the Karatu District, Arusha, Tanzania. Donations provide funding and support for facilities, training, supplies, and wages. Our efforts are designed to improve educational opportunities, provide economic support, and guidance for individuals wishing to establish home-based businesses and other entrepreneurial endeavors.

Tloma Primary School

Two low-wattage light bulbs give little light on cloudy days.Tloma Primary School is located north of Karatu, Tanzania, in Africa. It is over 50 years old and currently serves more than 800 children from three very poor rural villages. Thousands of children who have passed through its doors yet in 2018, the first visit, Tloma School had no water and no electricity. The headmaster traveled 20 km (nearly 12.5 miles) to print test papers. Few children had adequate clothing and shoes. Many did not eat lunch because their families could not provide maize (corn) and beans the school required for each student’s meals. 

The buildings were in need of repair. Several roofs had leaks, rooms lacked sufficient lighting, textbooks were worn out, and classrooms needed maintenance from wear and constant use. Classes contained between 85-125 students with only one teacher. Three to four students shared a desk and one textbook making classwork very difficult to complete. At that time, few of the students continued their education to secondary school.

What Is Being Done?

Produce from the school garden.Through Tloma Giving and other partners, Tloma School now has electricity, a school library, an administration office with printers, a one-acre drip-irrigated produce garden, and water catchment systems on each building. In addition, a high-yielding well of clean, free water has been engineered to benefit the whole community.

Daudi, local farmer, is helping students learn to graft Hass avocado into local avocado starts.

Teacher Sulle spearheaded and directed the changes. As a teacher, he inspires his students to improve their lives through more than classroom subjects. He encourages them to think, reason, plan, and work for a sustainable future. 

Students who join Sulle’s after-school Environmental Club learn to Hass avocado twigs grafter into local avocado stalks.plant and use both new and unfamiliar vegetables. They have learned how to care for banana, papaya, lemon, passion fruit, and other fruit trees. As an entrepreneurial venture, his club gathers and plants local non-commercial avocado seeds. They then graft Hass stems into the trunks of the new seedlings to establish a commercially profitable Hass avocado orchard.

We anticipate these and other economic development projects will eventually generate sufficient food production to provide free breakfast porridge for early grade students and lunch for older students. 

What Needs To Be Done?

The future looks bright for Tloma Primary School but more needs to be done to empower it with independent self-sustaining growth. Some of the original problems observed in 2018 still need to be addressed. Buildings are old, they lack sufficient lighting (even though they have electricity), and roofs are in need of repair. Textbooks continue to wear out and need to be replaced. Students need uniforms and shoes due to daily use and normal wear and classroom overcrowding continues to be an issue that can only be solved by hiring more teachers.

In the meantime, Tloma Giving continues its work to help teachers, students, and the community work for economic independence. While we, and our generous supporters, have funded most of the changes, international financial support continues to be essential. Please join us now in supporting the future success of Tloma Primary School and the surrounding communities.

A harvest of green peppers from the school garden.	Coffee plants producing a marketable crop.	The first banana crop. It takes three years for banana starts to mature and produce fruit.	Gutter system and tanks to catch rain water.	Finishing brickwork on the platform for dispensing water from the storage tanks.