School of St Jude
Samways Building & Construction has been proudly supporting The School of St Jude since 2009.
The School of St Jude was established in 2002 by Gemma Sisia, with the assistance of Rotary International. At just 22, Gemma travelled to Uganda to volunteer as a teacher, where she taught girls maths and sewing. Gemma, who grew up on a wool sheep farm in Armidale, Northern NSW, concluded that without raising the standards of education in East Africa, no amount of foreign money could alleviate the widespread poverty. The mission of The School of St Jude is to educate disadvantaged, bright students from the Arusha District to become moral and intellectual leaders in their country and for St Jude’s to thereby demonstrate educational leadership in Tanzania. Trying to build this vision from scratch with no real expertise or resources was surely qualified as a hopeless cause when the school opened in 2002, with 3 students and 1 Volunteer teacher.
With the help of dedicated sponsors like Samways, The School of St Jude is now educating approximately 1800 students across three campuses and employing 450 local Tanzanian staff.
Read Gemma’s Story and the history of the School of St Jude on their website.
