Vunjo Girls Dorm Project

November 15, 2009

Vunjo Secondary School in our village of Mwika (Tanzania)

We will be donating a portion of our film’s proceeds to support the girls’ dormitory construction project at Vunjo Secondary School in our village of Mwika.

This project feels like an ideal match, given the themes of gender violence and girls’ lack of access to education that we explore in our film.

In Tanzania, students must successfully pass their “O-level exams” in order to proceed to the 9th grade. Consider the following research findings comparing the performance of girls who board at the school vs. girls who commute to school daily:

The pass rate of “boarding” girls = 100%
vs.
The pass rate of “day” girls = 9%

Furthermore, more than 90% of girls who successfully entered the 9th grade,
and boarded at the school, went on to college!!

So the key to a girl’s educational success is in their ability to pass this critical exams.

Which is why we are actively supporting the construction of a new girls’ dorm. This is especially needed, given that girls’ enrollment has more than doubled since 2005; and this year, Vunjo had to turn away more than 70 girls due to lack of space.