You are here: / / / SCHULBANK Family celebrates 10 years of scholarship program in Tanzani...

A decade of education:
SCHULBANK family celebrates 10 years of scholarship program in Tanzania!


Dear SCHULBANK family, education sponsors and friends,

Ten years ago, we set out to find the right approach for our development work in Tanzania. We were looking for a solution that would integrate existing structures in a meaningful way without requiring high investments in buildings or infrastructure. Our actions should deliberately avoid Western influences in the field of education and demand the ownership of Tanzanian society and its institutions. Our goal was to provide direct and efficient support to the motivated young generationCongratulations on 10 years of scholarship program for orphans in Tanzania!

We are proud of that.


Our concept works! The success of our program confirms this impressively. The direct investment in people sparks immense energy and motivation. This is not only evident in our pupils and students, who achieve outstanding results, but also in us, because we draw our strength from these wonderful encounters. Their zest for life, motivation and optimism give us hope that a strong next generation will grow up in Tanzania.

Over the last ten years, we have learned a lot about intercultural cooperation and continue to grow with the challenges that arise from two such different worlds. We now approach every new task with a change of perspective, which constantly challenges us as a team and at the same time brings us closer together.

What we have achieved.


Our successes to date are impressive. In the last 10 years, we have awarded 142 scholarships and have been able to draw on donations amounting to almost half a million euros. Currently, we offer 100 scholarship places, which are awarded exclusively to full and half orphans. It is particularly gratifying that the majority of our scholarship recipients continue their educational careers at secondary schools, colleges or universities, often achieving above-average results. Here are some examples of which we are very proud:

Philipp Weischer, Projekte

Beste Studentin landesweit: Seit 2017 begleiten wir Niwaheri auf ihrem Bildungsweg. Angefangen hat ihre Reise an der St. James Secondary School, seitdem begleiten wir sie auf ihrem Weg am TTCIH (The Tanzanian Training Centre for International Health). Niwaheri ist derzeit im zweiten Jahr ihres klinischen Medizinstudiums und wurde kürzlich als die herausragendste Studentin ihres Fachgebiets im ganzen Land ausgezeichnet.

Jahrgangsbeste in Betriebswirtschaft: Unsere Stipendiatin Vainess hat sich im ersten Studienjahr ihres Bachelor-Studiengangs in Betriebswirtschaft und Finanzen an der St. John’s University in Dodoma als die herausragendste Studentin erwiesen. Vainess hat im ersten Studienjahr beeindruckende 4,8 von 5 Punkten erreicht.

Examen mit Auszeichnung: Seit dem Jahr 2015 gehört Pamela zur SCHULBANK-Familie. Nach ihrem erfolgreichen Abschluss der weiterführenden Schule hat sie ihre Ausbildung zur Krankenschwester an der Edgar Maranta School of Nursing in Ifakara absolviert. Mit viel Engagement hat Pamela ihr Examen mit einem beeindruckenden Durchschnitt von 4,3 (von 5,0) abgeschlossen.

Mutter und Studentin: Johari ist Vollwaise und lebt in einem Waisenhaus in Ifakara. Mit unserer Unterstützung hat Johari ihre Ausbildung zur Krankenschwester ausgezeichnet abgeschlossen und daran ein Studium zur Krankenpflege am renommierten Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Centre angeschlossen. Beeindruckend ist, dass Johari mittlerweile Mutter geworden ist und mit dieser Doppelbelastung weiterhin ihr Studium fortführt.

Spitzennoten auf weiterführender Schule: Von den 75 Schülern, die im Jahr 2022 ihr Abitur an der St. James absolvierten, gehören 12 herausragende Schüler zu unserem Stipendienprogramm. Joshua erstrahlt als der Top-Schüler in Mathematik, Mary glänzt als die Spitzenreiterin in Kiswahili, Masinde überzeugt als der beste Sportler, und Mariam zeigt sich als Schulsprecherin mit beeindruckenden Führungsqualitäten

Congratulations! Rhoida was hired as a teacher of history and English at Kwakilosa Secondary School in the Iringa region (for students in grades one through four). This professional step comes after her successful completion of her teaching degree at the University of Dar es Salaam. We congratulate her warmly on this outstanding achievement and wish her every success in her new position!

Community performance with a sense of responsibility.


As we uphold the successes of our scholarship recipients, we must at the same time recognize their individual commitment and acknowledge the generous financial support of all our sponsors and patrons. However, they are not the only ones who deserve thanks, but also the parents and guardians of our scholarship holders who financially support their protégés on this path.

We would also like to thank our cooperation partners, including schools, colleges and universities in Tanzania. Through their financial participation and reduction of school fees, they and the parents have made a monetary contribution almost equal to our donation amount above. In this way, they have fulfilled their parental and social responsibilities in a particularly exemplary manner.

Reflections – Reflections on our work


We are still intensively engaged in critically reviewing our program and reflecting on our orientation. We would like to share some of our thoughts and conclusions with you.

The original idea of the sponsorship concept was to establish and accompany 1:1 relationships between our “sponsored children” and the sponsors. However, as time went on, we had to realize that the amount of time required could not be handled by our team, as is the case with many other sponsorship programs. In addition, after the first few years, we have come to the safe realization that, with few exceptions, our sponsors neither sought nor missed, and in some cases did not even desire, communication with the sponsored children.

Another important realization took a little longer: personification made the dependency relationship between the donor and the recipient even clearer, especially for the sponsored child who was “obligated to give thanks.” Instead of closeness to the fellows, we experienced subordination and distance and realized that colonial thought patterns cannot be overcome in this way.

For all existing sponsorships we will continue to offer information about the development of the sponsored child. For future SCHULBANK supporters, their monthly support will go toward creating a new, but anonymous, scholarship spot.

Our demand for transparency and communication in this network of donors, scholarship holders and partners has always been very high: monthly newsletters, semi-annual school results for sponsors, 1:1 communication between sponsors and sponsored children, online invoice archive, quarterly parent meetings, annual events with partner schools etc. To be honest, we have to admit that we have not lived up to this claim and that it has also been too excessive in some respects. We found that for some measures we did not take enough time, for others there was not enough time, and for still others there was simply too little demand.

Inspired by the Corona period, we now offer one or two online meetings a year. It’s a format that we’ve gotten a lot of positive feedback on, and one that gives us more room for told stories and individual follow-up questions. After a long period of silence on our website, we have been able to tell stories about our scholarship holders here again since last year. In the future, we would like to respond to these articles again via a regular newsletter.

The financial participation of scholarship recipients and their legal guardians is important to us in order to ensure their commitment and prevent abuse. Until 2021, we had parents and guardians contribute 30% of school fees and remit the total cost to the schools annually, which was time consuming and resulted in delinquencies. Meanwhile, parents pay ancillary school costs, which are roughly the same burden, directly and to the school.

Over the last 10 years our sponsorship contribution has remained unchanged. We are proud of this, but must also state that we have only achieved this through private compensation payments by founders and association members. Two natural reasons lead to rising costs: On the one hand, schools naturally pass on their burden of rising prices and wages to our scholarship holders. On the other hand, a large number of the scholars who started with us in elementary school are now developing into more costly types of schools. For this reason, we will again increase the recruitment of new scholars in low-cost school types in order to lower the average cost. We will also be increasing the monthly donation from EUR 30 to EUR 40 as of 01.01.2024. Although this increase cannot be mandatory for existing donors, we ask for your understanding and approval.

Ten years ago, our criteria for selecting applicants were far removed from those of a fellowship program (although here, too, the selection criteria have changed in the meantime). We were concerned that we would be perceived as an elite program. Any applicant who could demonstrate need and pass the school’s eligibility test could hope to receive assistance.

But over time, and with increasing awareness of the comparatively high cost of private high schools, we questioned the usefulness and necessity of placing average and lower-performing students in challenging private schools where they might not succeed and risk dropping out or transferring in frustration.

Therefore, we decided to use the applicants’ academic background and their final grades as criteria for decision-making. This has resulted in stricter admissions criteria for new scholars, and we now recommend that weaker scholars transfer to an easier and less expensive state school without having to leave the program. This cost savings currently allows us to more easily fund scholarships at expensive private schools, while creating room for the creation of new scholarship positions.

In recent years, calls from African voices calling for an end to or reduction in aid have grown louder. These payments, which are often misdirected, reinforce corruption in the country and, over decades, have considerably weakened the individual’s and society’s sense of responsibility for their own actions.

Although we have done a very good job of aligning our program with these risks, we too notice this taker mentality and struggle to understand the situation of our partners, grantees, and other fundraisers. Often, from our point of view, the solidarity of the counterpart for the common cause and the willingness to participate is lacking, which regularly causes us to fall into a motivational hole and causes disappointment. This circumstance increasingly prevents us from expanding our involvement beyond the scholarship program and from taking risks in our collaborations. Admittedly, this is not a shining aspect in this review, but it is just as much a part of it. However, with each meeting of our fellows in Iringa, this aspect fades and confidence returns.

We are very happy about any interlocutor who helps us to work out solutions in the field of tension of development cooperation.

In today’s world, any form of action must meet the requirement of sustainability. Already a decade ago, we set ourselves the goal of investing donations in high-quality education, and thus directly in the sustainable development of people. According to one study, Tanzanian secondary school graduates earn up to four times more than others. If we look at the number of graduates and the quality of their degrees, we can undoubtedly speak of a valuable and sustainable investment. Bravo!

The question still remains whether the construction and operation of an educational facility for hundreds of students would have been a more efficient and thus more sustainable alternative. Because the administrative costs of our program are extremely low, our donated funds go exclusively to tuition and school-related expenses that are ultimately used to fund an educational facility. So the physical goal of donation payments is the same in both approaches. Only the route of the money differs, and offers us as SCHOOL BANK increased flexibility in terms of the size of our program. In addition, earmarking ensures greater security in the use of funds.

In addition, we have set another sustainability goal of achieving financial independence for the program solely through Tanzanian funding within a timeframe of 10 to 20 years. Unfortunately, we are still a long way from this goal, and the prospect of realizing it is visibly fading. Our idea of securing funding by setting up a social enterprise in Tanzania proved to be too ambitious given our financial, but especially time resources. Even government support as a source of funds proves limited, as even Bafög payments to eligible students can only cover a fraction.

Your congratulations, our tailwind:

Feel welcome to drop us a line:

0 replies

Leave a Reply

Want to join the discussion?
Feel free to contribute!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Vainess is finishing her first semester of business administration at the top...With confidence to success – strong messages for our test candidates