About St. Mary’s Mazinde Juu
St. Mary’s Mazinde Juu Secondary School is a girls’ boarding school in the Usambara Mountains of northeastern Tanzania in East Africa. Owned by the Catholic Diocese of Tanga, and run by local order of sisters, it is affiliated with St. Paul’s Abbey, a Benedictine monastery in Newton, New Jersey. The manager of St. Mary’s is Father Damian Milliken, a Benedictine priest from St. Paul’s who has taught in Tanzania for 40 years.

It’s Mission
Fewer than 5% of Tanzania’s young women receive a secondary education. Without this education, they lack the skills necessary to help lead their families, their communities, and their country to self – sufficiency and economic stability.

History
St. Mary’s opened in 1989 with a group of 40 girls from the local area. Since then, the school has expanded to serve over 250 Students, and has grown from one building to a compound which includes classroom and dormitories, an assembly hall seating 600, as well as physics and chemistry/ biology labs, needlework and cookery rooms, and a 3,500 volume library. All buildings are wire for electricity, with solar lighting units so that students may study even during the frequent power outages.

Academics
Classes are taught in all academic subjects required by the Tanzanian secondary syllabus: civics, Kiswahili (the national language), Geography, History, English, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Math, Domestic Science (cookery, nutrition, and sewing), and Religion. St. Mary’s employs 20 qualified teachers, and several teaching assistants and support staff.

The project began in 1988, a joint effort of the Sister of Mercy, the Sisters of St. Joseph, and Nazareth College in Rochester, New York, with the encouragement of Father Damian. Nazareth College provided full tuition scholarships for the Tanzanian Sisters; other expenses are paid with the help of a network of private sources and benefactors.
Since 1991, eight sisters have graduated with undergraduate degrees; two have gone on to earn Master’s degrees. All have returned to teach in Tanzanian schools.
The need is great for schools and qualified teachers, so that Tanzanian children can hope for a better life than their parents have, and can help lead their country to self-sufficiency and economic stability. The education of Tanzanian women is an investment in the future of a Third World Country that will pay tremendous dividends for generations to come.

“Rather than solving problems in Africa through outside intervention, it is better to equip the Africans themselves with the education and expertise they need to identity and solve their own problems”(Father Damian Milliken, OSB)

Contributions to St. Mary’s Secondary School and the Tanzanian Sisters Project are welcome. Please make checks out to the Sisters of Mercy or the Sisters of St. Joseph, with a notation for the Tanzanian Sisters Project, or for St. Mary’s Secondary School.

“Our overriding concern is to make education available to the women of Africa. When the women are empowered, I believe real change will begin…” ( Father Damian Millike)

Tanzania: Fast Facts.
1. Population: 30 million; Population/ sq. mile: 84; 15% live in urban areas.
2. Size: 945,090 sq. km., approximately twice the size of California.
3. Religion: 33% Christian, 33% Muslim, 33% indigenous faiths.
4. Language: Tribal, Kiswahili and English.
5. Infant mortality rate is 1:10
6. Life expectancy: Men: 40.95 years. Women: 43.78 years.
7. Unemployment is as high as 80% in many areas.
8. Literacy rate (age 15 and over able to read and write in Kiswahili): total: 59%; male: 71%; female: 48%.
9. Agriculture: over 90% of the active population relies on subsistence farming as a major source of food.

St. Mary’s Mazinde Juu Secondary School, Box 90 Lushoto, Tanzania, East Africa.