Girls Education Collaborative (GEC) works with community-led initiatives to bring social change through the power of girls education.

Rising Strong After the Fire

Our challenges and new beginnings

Published in

Girls Education Collaborative

7 min readDec 5, 2018

For those who have been following our work, you know that we, together with the Immaculate Heart Sisters of Africa (IHSA), helped build the Kitenga Secondary School for Girls (KSSG) in a rural, impoverished and underserved area in north west Tanzania, and that the doors opened to its first class in January 2017.

You also hopefully know that the school has grown each year and is now housing, educating and nurturing 70 adolescent girls — many of whom, if not in school, might be facing FGM (female genital mutilation) and/or being bartered into marriage in exchange for cows.

You also heard me report after my July trip that the school was thriving and poised for growth. The energy and excitement on campus, of what was unfolding, was palpable. So, on August 14th, the GEC Board approved we fund and manage the construction of a second dormitory, so the school could continue to grow as planned.

And then…suddenly…POW.

A middle-of-the-night dorm fire on August 16 that miraculously spared every life (70 girls, 5 nuns and one little boy), devastated the girls’ dormitory. Twenty-four hours later the girls were sent home (though they wanted to stay) and everyone got to work to re-open the school.

Through the sheer determination of the Sisters putting in incredibly long & hard days, the support of local government and parents, the financial support of the amazing GEC community, and ultimately the resiliency and determination of everyone involved with the school, doors re-opened 14 Days later and the spirit of Kitenga rose strong.

Although I was in close contact with school leaders during this tragedy, it was hard to truly imagine what had taken place — until being there myself.

Seeing the burned-out dormitory with my own eyes was worse than I anticipated it to be.

From the piles of ash that were everywhere, to the paint bubbling off the walls and the roof sheets tumbling down into open spaces…or to the girls’ metal lockers that could not ultimately protect their belongings and the scattered, burned school books — it was no longer the big, beautiful, laughter and song-filled place I remembered. But it will be, again.

Yet there to see, amidst the devastation, were signs of hope.

The chickens happily discovering salvageable grains of maize (the school’s recent harvest had been stored in empty dorm rooms) and the little green plant pushing out from a pile of ash.

Good reminder: it could have been worse (the Sisters and students clearly responded to the emergency appropriately, as one might call it a miracle that no one was hurt). Life is a cycle of challenges and new beginnings.

We are closer to knowing how all this happened.

It’s tough news to report:

JOINT STATEMENT BY IMMACULATE HEART SISTERS OF AFRICA AND GIRLS EDUCATION COLLABORATIVE ON DORMITORY FIRE AT KITENGA SECONDARY SCHOOL, KITENGA TANZANIA
Evidence is showing that the fire in the girls’ dormitory (on August 16, 2018) was set deliberately. The investigation as to who may have set the fire is continuing.
In the meantime, security at the school has been increased as the students’ security and safety is our foremost priority.

The police are continuing to investigate so that the perpetrator can be brought to justice. It is of course unsettling to not know who would do this, so precautions for safety and security are being taken.

Yet I feel the even more powerful story here is not what happened, but the response to what happened.

The local community responded generously with clothes and blankets and food (everything was lost but the night clothes they were wearing).
District officials worked in-hand with the Sisters to plan how to re-open. In just 2 weeks GEC raised $25,000 to fund the re-opening and to replace items lost to the fire.
Everyone rolled up their sleeves to work tirelessly for 13 days so the school could re-open just 14 days after the fire.

These are the actions that taken together, kept a school from shuttering, kept ‘the doors opened’. But perhaps this is not the apex of the story either. I feel the lasting message here is not necessarily the actions that took place in those two weeks, but the attitude and spirit that has prevailed.

Today, in Kitenga, there is no lack of joy (in everyday life).
Hope (for good things to happen).
Belief (that what they are doing will change the world).
Or faith (in the God who has blessed them).
In fact, they are there in abundance, and they stand firmly on a bed of resiliency and determination.

The burned dorm will be re-built.

The girls will not be living in empty-classrooms turned-dorm rooms forever. A number of engineers have made inspections to determine structural safety and what is salvageable. We are close to determining a ‘moving forward’ plan for the dorm’s reconstruction.

In complete contrast to seeing the burned dorm, was seeing the amazing progress underway of the GEC-funded second dormitory!

Knowing that it could take time to fully evaluate the burned dorm and then plan the rebuilding, we went full steam ahead with Dorm #2 and broke ground in September as planned. This new, ‘green’ dorm that will harvest rain water and be powered by solar, will become home for 120 students, so even more girls can benefit from the Kitenga experience. This new dorm is not yet fully-funded, so we do have some revenue-raising work ahead of us; we will hopefully keep pace with the construction so the building is finished this spring.

And what about the burned dorm?

How will that reconstruction be funded? A little background first…GEC and IHSA have a very deep, collaborative partnership. It began with a lot of listening on our part to what the locally-identified priorities were. The Sisters’ objective: empower the local women through the power of girls education. Our objective: help this bold vision be realized AND endure.

This tragedy has actually proven to be an opportunity for us to test our partnership model — what happens when things go (really) wrong?
If you have built trust and our guided by shared goals, this is what you do: you hunker down and squeeze each other’s hands even tighter.

There was a lot of infrastructure required before the school could open. The Sisters took the lead on funding and managing the construction of: two classroom buildings and latrines, the dormitory and homes for the teachers (a product of the school’s remoteness).

GEC funded and managed: the library, science center, a road and bridge, guest house and the newest classroom building (which is serving as the temporary dorm room). This collaborative ‘division of labor’ continues! While GEC is spearheading the building of Dorm #2, the Sisters are taking the lead raising the funds to rebuild the dorm.

No lives were lost in the tragedy and for that we are extremely grateful.

Buildings can be re-built. They can turn out even better than they were before! And in fact, the foundation of the burned dorm stands strong — as does the ‘foundation’ itself that underlies this very special school.

This foundation stems from a group of Tanzanian change-makers who have linked arms with a global community, to free girls from the customs and traditions that shackle their young lives today, and in their future.
Striving for gender equity through education not only changes each girl’s individual life, but that of her community’s and our shared world as well.

The Sisters, students and teachers have asked me many, many times, to let the GEC community know how grateful they are for their amazing support that brought this school into their lives. I join them in their gratitude!