All schools that participate in Voices Around The World should be immensely proud of the way they are helping to improve the life chances of young people in Njombe, Tanzania. Voices Around The World is part of a team that is working to help improve the education for children in Njombe. The living conditions for the children are quite harsh - many of the them have been orphaned due to the high impact of aids/HIV in this part of Tanzania. Some schools do exist in the area, but not all children can get a place, and many of them are known as 'street kids.' Njombe is a transit town for truckers transporting their loads from Uganda, Kenya and Rwanda in the north to Mozambique in the south. It is common knowledge that the truckers in Africa also transport the HIV virus with them and give it to the 'twilight ladies' (an African term) who meet them at the trucking stops. The virus is thereby introduced and sustained in isolated communities like Njombe. One of the areas where the trucks over-night is adjacent to the main school in Njombe - St. Mary's. This area of Tanzania has one of the highest levels of HIV/AIDS in Africa and the level in Tanzania as a country is relatively high as well.

Currently we are looking to support St Mary's School  - to improve the buildings, facilities and quality of teaching. Facilities and resources for teaching are currently very limited. So far, our team has enabled work to build new classrooms for the school and has helped to establish school development plans. Work has also been done to introduce school gardens, where produce is grown that goes into the school meals. Through sponsorship, VATW has sent some music equipment over to the school  to help the teachers and students get involved in the VATW project. This year we are putting funding in to develop some basic sports facilities and to purchase text books. Helping the Njombe children is an exciting project and with the help of all of those participating in Voices Around The World and others who are helping to fund-raise, we aim to provide a much improved quality of education in Njombe over the next 5 years and further ahead!