Tujenge Shule, Educating the Leaders of Tomorrow

Samara Visram a 17-year-old student at the Aga Khan Academy, Mombasa shared a truly inspiring story, a dream of hers - ‘Tujenge Shule, Educating the Leaders of Tomorrow’, that she has been working towards for the past four years. She hopes to build a Secondary School in honor of her late grandfather Amirali Visram who she describes as her role model.

Having lived in Kikambala all her life, she feels that it is her responsibility to help elevate the socio-economic standards of the residents of the village.

Samara’s family has spearheaded community service projects for over 40 years.

She mentions that this project is all as a result of her family’s and her faith’s constant teachings of giving back to challenged members of society.

After attending Suzanne Mubarak’s ‘End Human Trafficking Conference’ in Luxor, Egypt (2010), she learnt that education was one of the best avenues in fighting human trafficking and poverty.

Many children of school going age in Kikambala attended Primary School (after the government began providing free lunch and education) but weren’t able to afford either the fees or boarding costs for Secondary School education, due to a lack of Secondary School facilities in the area.

Many of those who weren’t able to attend Secondary School would get lured into social vices.

The IB MYP Personal Project gave her the opportunity to work on a project of her choice for about eight months.

She used this project as a platform to kick-off the ‘Kikambala Secondary School.

A ‘baraza’ (meeting) in the village was held where the community elders engaged in open discussions and felt that the existence of a Secondary School in there area would help their young children obtain employment thereby decreasing poverty in the long-run.

The Elders were very forthcoming in giving their consent to her project.

Samara was able to obtain the approvals from the Kikambala Primary School and the School Management Committee.

Samara further completed a product-analysis of various Secondary Schools in the area and interviewed Government officials including Kilifi’s District Commissioner, the District Education Officer and the Architect at Ministry of Public Works to complete her research on the design and facilities available in other Government schools.

Based on the Government’s School of Excellence requirements, Samara designed her project (using Google SketchUp) and was able to meet with local suppliers to come up with the approximate costs of the equipment and construction of the school.

After the period of her Personal Project, she has decided to continue working on this project and has been able to talk to potential donors.

The World Bank heard of her project and invited her to the World Bank Youth Summit 2013 (online), where her project was introduced, under topic of Social Good.

The Governor of Kilifi indicated that upon completion of the building of the School and donating it to the County Government, the Ministry of Education would manage and staff the school.

After viewing Samara’s Google SketchUp designs, Governor Kingi mentioned that this school would be an exemplary School of Excellence for the Ministry of Education.