Buguruni School for the Deaf

New - you can now see videos of the school! They're on our Youtube channel: you can either just search for "Tanzanear" on Youtube or go directly here Tanzania videos

Buguruni School for the Deaf is in the Buguruni district of Dar es Salaam, in the west of the city on the road to the airport. It was founded in 1973 by the Tanzania Society for the Deaf, and officially opened in 1974 by Mwalimu Nyerere, Tanzania's revered first president. It charges no fees: although it is not officially a state-run school, the Government pays for teachers' salaries, the costs for pupils who board, and a small proportion of administration and maintenance costs. For everything else, it is dependent upon fundraising locally and in the UK via Tanzanear and charities associated with Tanzanear.

The school's motto is 'Education & love is our right'.

Hearing being tested by a volunteer Professional Audiologist.

Buguruni School is a primary school. Many pupils attend until they are 18 years old, because they do not begin education until they are six or seven, often have to take years off in order to help at home, and need to spend time at the beginning of their school career learning sign language before they can progress to the mainstream curriculum. In Tanzania it is very common for people to be at primary school until this age; many people do not finish secondary school until their early twenties.

Some of the older girls working on a needlework project.

A lot of the deafness in Tanzania is acquired, caused by inadequate treatment of childhood illnesses that should not have serious consequences. It thus tends to be more prevalent among poor families who are unable to afford adequate healthcare. The children at Buguruni School come from all over Tanzania and the Zanzibar Archipelago, because it is very unusual for a school for deaf children to be free.

Refurbishment

Pictures of a classroom refurbishment which also happens to tie in with Phase 1 of the Audiology Building.

The finished classroom is also a template for all our other classrooms and we hope that local donors might sponsor a classroom and even start rolling up their sleeves and painting it themselves.