In 2003 a young Salisbury man, Tim Dench, was volunteering in Mtwara teaching English in local primary schools as part of his gap year.  Struck by the extreme poverty experienced by families and the desperate lack of education, Tim came back to Salisbury and encouraged family, friends, teachers and businesses to help – as a result EdUKaid was formed. 

EdUKaid initially focused on supporting individual children to access an education through the child sponsorship project – these children had been orphaned due to the harsh reality of Aids; and their extended families were unable to pay the fees required to send children to school at that time.  In an attempt to support local primary schools we set up a volunteer programme recruiting young adults from the UK to spend time teaching English and generally supporting local primary schools. 

Overtime, we witnessed the negative impact that these neglected schools were having on the children and recognised the need to invest in improving the physical learning environment.  We also saw the desperate need to provide an education to the youngest schoolchildren who were turning up every day but with no hope of an education.  Working closely with local stakeholders, we set up our school improvement and pre-primary projects renovating our first primary school and opening our first pre-primary class in 2009.  We quickly saw the incredible difference this made – thanks to our supporters, we have now renovated 20 primary schools opened 15 pre-primary classes and supported over 300 teachers and head teachers to develop their skills. 

Following a review EdUKaid has committed to reaching more children with a focus on:

• those at greatest risk of dropping out of school
• those further disadvantaged because of attitudes towards gender and disability
• continuing to work in partnership with schools, policy makers and local people to ensure that our projects are responding to local need
• continuing to empower communities to develop long-term sustainable solutions to the challenges they face. 

Help us do even more

Donate now or get in touch to start fundraising for EdUKaid