In honor of Giving Tuesday, RP Construction Services and non-profit Nurturing Minds Work to Bring e-Readers to the Solar-Powered SEGA Girls School in Tanzania
RP Construction Services, Inc. (RPCS) and Nurturing Minds are continuing their efforts on their campaign to bring e-Readers to the Secondary Education for Girls’ Advancement (SEGA) school in Morogoro, Tanzania, this Giving Tuesday.
The SEGA school opened in 2008 to provide quality education and life skills for at-risk girls in Tanzania. SEGA provides secondary education and housing for over 270 girls in grades 7 through 11. In addition, 60 graduates live off-campus who are currently enrolled in continuing education programs supported by SEGA scholarships and SEGA’s “Modern Girl” community outreach program now gives another 450 girls in very remote villages the chance to learn skills and improve their future through weekly clubs facilitated by SEGA graduates and staff. Their mission is to educate and empower Tanzanian girls who are impoverished, marginalized, and in danger of becoming involved in exploitative forms of child labor.
Introducing e-Readers will provide the opportunity for students to become active learners through technology, and will be an added resource to fuel academic success. Through their joint campaign, RPCS and Nurturing Minds hope to supply 60 e-Readers to students to improve reading and vocabulary skills, and aid students in scoring higher on national exams, all while creating a brighter future for SEGA students.
“We have been blessed to get book donations over the years, but it is often challenging to transport them and get them to the school,” says Laura DeDominicis, Director of Nurturing Minds. “E-readers are a fabulous, cost effective way for Nurturing Minds to expand SEGA’s library.”
SEGA also instills environmental stewardship, and operates an environmentally sustainable off-the-grid campus that runs entirely on solar power. This provides a clean, renewable energy source which eliminates the dependency on unreliable nationally supplied electricity and provides a superior learning environment for students. The solar power will ultimately allow students to charge e-Readers and give them the ability to study at night.
Tanzania is one of the poorest countries in the world and only 17% of girls in Tanzania attend secondary school. Poverty forces many girls to drop out of school, resulting in early marriage and teen pregnancy. With a 97% pass rate and a 96% retention rate, a quality education provided by SEGA leads to continuing education, future employment, and ultimately an increased standard of living which includes improved healthcare, food security, and housing. Just one extra year of secondary school boosts girls’ eventual wages by 15 to 25 percent.
SEGA uses a holistic approach to education which includes an academically challenging Tanzanian curriculum, entrepreneurship development, and a comprehensive life skills and leadership program. In addition, the school teaches computer technology and entrepreneurship and provides the girls with counseling, business training, and healthcare. It is now ranked in the top 20% of small secondary schools in Tanzania.
“This campaign is simple,” says RPCS Founder Eb Russell. “It’s about those 270 girls. You give and their lives change forever.”
RPCS has pledged to match each dollar raised.
RP Construction Services, Inc. designs and builds ground mount solar projects. With over 360 projects and nearly 1GW completed or under construction throughout the United States, RPCS provides full turnkey service and support for the industry’s most bankable and reliable tracker, the Array Technologies DuraTrack® HZ v3 single-axis tracker, including site layout optimization, ancillary engineering services, tracker supply, foundation post procurement, and complete mechanical installation. For more information about RPCS, please visit rpcs.com or call us at 831.620.2188.
Nurturing Minds provides financial and technical support to programs improving access to quality education for girls in Tanzania, with a particular emphasis on girls who are poor, marginalized, and at risk of becoming involved in exploitative forms of child labor. Currently, Nurturing Minds is supporting Secondary Education for Girls’ Advancement (SEGA) and its development of a girls’ secondary boarding school in Morogoro, Tanzania. For more information, please visit www.nurturingmindsinafrica.org