Community Tourism Spotlight St Marys Mazinde Juu
Tucked away in the Usambara Mountains near Lushoto, in the tiny village of Mazinde Juu, is St Mary's Secondary School, an impressive educational success story. The school was founded in 1989 by a Benedictine missionary, based on the idea that Tanzania's long-term development can only be achieved through the education and empowerment of the country's women. The area around Mazinde Juu - long neglected and lagging behind much of the rest of the region economically -was an ideal place to put this belief into practice. Most local families made (and continue to make) their living from small-scale farming, and education for girls, especially secondary education, was traditionally perceived as an unattainable or unnecessary luxury.
Initially, the school had only basic resources and just 42 girls. Today, it has around 350 students and is ranked near the top among the approximately 60 girls' schools and in the top 10 of about 600 secondary schools in the country. Its reputation has also spread well beyond the Usambara Mountains; close to 700 girls from all over Tanzania competed in the most recent entrance exam for places, although true to its original mission, the school reserves 50% of its seats for applicants from the Lushoto-Mazinde Juu area.
While St Mary's is still dependent on outside contributions to make ends meet (write to PO Box 90, Lushoto if you'd like to help), strong emphasis is placed on achieving sustainability. The principal and all of the teachers are Tanzanians, and most are women. Students are taught ecologically sound farming methods and help out on the school farm, which supplies about 80% of the food needs in the compound. The school grows timber, which is used in the construction of new buildings, raises livestock and maintains fruit trees as cash crops.
Although St Mary's is less than two decades old, there is already tangible proof of its success. Several former students are now teaching at the school and at other schools in the area. Others are pursuing further professional training, including nursing and accountancy, and some are studying at university level.
and Tashrif lines, departing at 7am and 9am; Lushoto and Dar es Salaam (Tsh7000, six to seven hours) on Mbaruku and Shambalai lines, departing at 6am, 8am 9am and noon; and Lushoto and Arusha (Tsh9000, six hours) on Fasaha and Chakito lines, departing at 6.30am and 7am. All of these buses stop for a while in Mombo to collect more passengers. If you're going from Lushoto to either Dar es Salaam, Moshi or Arusha, it often works out just as fast to take a dalla-dalla or taxi (Tsh25,000) to Mombo, and then get one of the larger express buses to Dar es Salaam. The place to wait is at New Liverpool Hotel, on the main highway about 1km west of the Mombo junction, where all the Dar es Salaam-Arusha buses stop for a rest break. Buses from Dar es Salaam begin arriving at the New Liverpool Hotel from about 10am.
To get to the lodges near Migambo (Mullers Mountain Lodge), take the road heading uphill and northeast of town to Magamba, turn right at the signposted junction and continue for about 7km to Migambo junction. Mullers is about 1km further down the Migambo road and signposted. Via public transport, there's a daily bus between Tanga and Kwamakame that goes to within around 2km of Mullers, departing Tanga at about 9am or 10am and reaching the Migambo area at around 2pm.
Average user rating: 5 stars out of 1 votes
Post a comment