STUDENT CENTER

All three schools serve lunch.  This is a very important feature of the school.  Students come to school for lunch.   For Meali Primary School and Losirwa Primary School, Friends of Meali have created a student center, a multifunction building to meet a variety of needs.  The heart of the center is its dining room, seating about 150 diners at a time.  This space doubles as an event venue for graduations, etc., and provides an alternative space for teaching when it’s not mealtime.  At one end is an indoor kitchen, much nicer than the rudimentary structure it replaced, and with one of the large water tanks right outside.  There is also a locked, dry food storage room for the corn, beans, and rice that comprise the daily lunch.  At the other end is the school library, which includes a secure storage room for books, globes, and miscellaneous teaching tools, and a computer center with  computers. There is solar power on the roof.  Having the computer printer/copier provides an invaluable new capability for tests, event programs, etc., previously all written by hand.  Meali and Losirwa have incorporated computer classes into the curriculum for Standards (grades) V, VI, and VII, something offered by only a precious few rural Tanzanian schools.  Losirwa rents the space out for weddings earning some extra monies for the school.