In our last newsletter, sent to you in December 2016, we told you about some of the fantastic things that The Heri Special School had managed to achieve as a result of donations such as yours: covered walkways alongside school buildings, roof repairs and maintenance, wheelchair accessibility to classrooms, and more…

Our new management team has now completed its first full year in office, leaving us constantly in awe of what our much loved Mark Roberts and Egha Egha achieved for Heri Special School in the last years of both their lives until 2015. From bare earth, Egha and Mark realised their dream of building a pioneering special school deep in the rolling countryside of Tanzania, and named it “Heri”, meaning happiness in Swahili.

According to Safina Egha, the Headteacher of Heri Special School, there are currently 42 pupils using the school, 11 of the pupils are disabled (aged from 6 years to 18 years old) and 31 non-disabled.  As in the UK, it is a distinct advantage for disabled children to be taught alongside mainstream peers, particularly if the non-disabled children are younger, as is the case with Heri School. 

As you may already know, Mark Roberts, the Founding Trustee of the St. Jude Foundation, passed away in February, just over one year ago.  Over the last twelve months it has become clear to us how much time Mark spent running the Foundation, and how hard he worked to raise money for the Heri Special School in Tanzania.  Several months before Mark died, he wrote to me to ask if I would be willing to continue the work that he had been doing to support the development of Heri Special School.

On the morning of 10th February 2015, Mark Roberts, the founding trustee of the St Jude Foundation, passed away peacefully in his sleep, at the age of 78. He was a teacher throughout his adult life and was the headmaster of Rectory Paddock School for handicapped children in Orpington, Kent. Although retired for many years, he gave his last lesson only 3 weeks ago.

This has been a year of significant change for the Heri School. As you know, the founder of the school, Egha Egha, sadly died last March and has been succeeded by his daughter, Safina, who is dedicated to carrying on the work of the school in honour of her father’s memory. During the past year the Foundation has continued to support the school with a number of projects, including the building of a wall surrounding the school, and paying for repairs when severe rainfall caused subsidence close to the building.

I have to give you some very sad news: Egha Egha, formerly Head Teacher of Heri Special School, has died. He had been ill for many months, firstly after being severely kicked by a cow (which his family kept to provide milk), and secondly when he developed pneumonia. We have to bear in mind that hospital facilities in Tanzania are very limited, and we can only guess at what quality of care he received. I have never known Egha’s exact age, but I estimate that he was in his early sixties.