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Staying in School Alakra

Alakra helps young Tanzanian women to take control of their lives through education and skills training so that they can attain jobs or start their own businesses. Alakra also supports young people whose parents work in wildlife conservation, but its focus is on helping girls.

The organisation was founded by Royal African Safaris Partner and Royal African Foundation Board Member Tim Corfield. So far it has helped 44 students to stay in school and this year 20 girls and 9 boys are being supported.

In addition to paying school fees, the Alakra team (Made up of Tim, Eustellah and Florah) make sure the students are looked after and receive help with books, uniforms and accommodation if they need it so they can succeed at school.

Alakra has sponsored a number of girls who have come to them to try and escape being forced to marry and drop out of school. Child marriage is the leading cause of the gender gap at secondary level in Africa. As it is a cultural practice one could ask who are Alakra to intervene and sponsor the girls through school when their parent(s) want them to marry?

Alakra believes it should be the girls choice and helps the girls that come to them for help. When girls get to stay in school there are numerous benefits for them and for society. These are summarised well by Dr Sajitha Bashir and her colleagues in their seminal book ‘Facing Forward – Schooling for Learning in Africa’ “Keeping girls in secondary school must be a priority for African Countries. Well-educated girls have better health outcomes and substantially higher earnings in adulthood. They are less likely to have children before they are ready to do so and tend to have fewer children over their lifetimes….Well-educated girls are also less likely to marry as children or to suffer from a lack of household decision-making power and from intimate partner violence. In addition, well-educated mothers are better equipped to support the optimal development of their children in the early years, as well as their own transition into adulthood. This leads to intergenerational benefits that influence the long-term development of societies.” (2018, p.182-3). Or as Melinda Gates put it in her fantastic book, The Moment of Lift, “When you lift up women, you lift up humanity.”

 “When you lift up women, you lift up humanity” (Melinda Gates, The Moment of Lift)


Helen is just one of the students Alakra has helped and this is her story:

“My name is Helen, I was born in a Maasai village called Monduli in the Arusha region in Tanzania. I was the last born of 11 children, seven boys and four girls. I was born into a pastoral society and life has never been easy for us, and no one in my family went to school except me. It’s all started when I turned twelve my father wanted me to get married to an old man who already has four wives, that is when my mom helped me to escape from the village to her brother’s place in town and from there I started primary school then I passed to join Secondary education, I completed my secondary education and passed to join college. Then my uncle lost his job and he had to send me back to my village, I felt discouraged and lost hope. I got to the village and my father still wanted me to get married. During that time I got very sick. My mother helped and we came to town and met Mr. Tim from Alakra who offered me a scholarship and took me to the hospital where I was diagnosed with Tuberculosis. Tim and Alakra helped me to start my medication and start my training to become a teacher.  I have completed my Certificate of Childhood Education with good grades, and am now in the second year of my Diploma in Childhood Education at Kisongo Teachers College and soon to be a qualified teacher! I am extremely grateful to my mother for encouraging me and Alakra for their help and my aspiration is to enable girls to achieve their dreams and help others around them.”

Also, we wanted to add Helen has been incredibly brave, has never complained throughout her treatment and she has now successfully recovered from TB!

We are so grateful to those of you who have supported Alakra over the years, you have made a huge difference to these students and their communities, who live alongside the wildlife we visit together.

If you would like to do donate to Alakra you can do so through our Royal African Foundation.

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100% of your donation will go to the project you choose and your donation to our registered 501(c)(3) organisation is tax-deductible as provided for by law.

Please contact us if you have any questions.

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