When Gemma Sisia talks, you listen. The affable Australian humanitarian is enthusiastic as she tells the tale of founding The School of St Jude in Arusha, Tanzania. Source: The Southern Cross.
“We started the school with three kids and we now have three schools,” she said during a nationwide fundraising trip around Australia in March.
The Adelaide event, hosted by St Aloysius College and supported by the Rotary Club of Eastwood, promoted the benefits of contributing to scholarships for those who need it most.
In the 23 years since opening The School of St Jude in 2002, the 100 per cent charity-funded school has provided free, quality education to children experiencing extreme poverty. Free scholarships are provided to the 1800 primary and secondary students.
The school also financially supports more than 400 students with their tertiary studies in 10 different countries.
“It’s not just the children who benefit. You can imagine the men and women peddling away on their sewing machines, making uniforms for the kids to wear; to all the hundreds of families of farmers who are growing the thousands of onions, tomatoes, watermelons, bananas and meat that go into the one million hot meals the school provides each year.”
Located across three campuses, St Jude’s provides boarding for all secondary students and employs about 300 Tanzanians.
Since the graduation of the school’s first cohort in 2015, more than 1000 students have completed their schooling and many have been supported in their tertiary studies.
Their list of achievements is impressive. Some work as Tanzania’s doctors, engineers, tradespeople, entrepreneurs, teachers and creatives.
Ms Sisia said she couldn’t have done it without the generosity of others. Most of St Jude’s annual budget comes from Australians.
“This year we need to raise around 10 million Australian dollars, but to think that over 90 per cent of that comes from Australia is really quite humbling,” she said.
“All of that tax deductible money arrives in Tanzania so we can use it to build more classrooms, more boarding houses, employ more staff and ultimately enrol more students.”
The event was also attended by Madeleine Kelly, who moved to Tanzania in 2017 and worked alongside Ms Sisia at St Jude’s for six years.
Ms Kelly, who is studying a Masters in Teaching in Adelaide, wrote a book about St Jude’s, The School that Hope Built. It was published by Allen & Unwin in 2023 and is available at schoolofstjude.org.
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Love from Gemma Sisia and students in Tanzania (By Katie Spain, The Southern Cross)
