A child without education is like a building without foundation. In this case, education is a means to development of every community. Rural communities in the Meru-Arusha have problem with limited social amenities which is educational facility is the one of them. About 70 per cent of rural communities in Meru have no educational facility. The situation of Meru community is worse than expected. Children from this community walk an average distance of 7.4 kilometers to access a school from nearby community.
As a result of this phenomenon, children between the ages of 4-8 years do not go to school in this community. Report from the schools near to these community indicate that, children from these communities are always late for school and are not punctual due to the distance they cover. 6 out 10 children complete their basic education in these communities.
Child labour is a major issue in these communities as a result of the lack of educational facility in these communities. Children between the ages of 6-12 years who cannot walk the distance of 7.4 kilometers to school walk even longer distances to farm. Parents from these communities justifies why they take their children to farms with the reason that, there is no one in the home to take care of the children when they are away and these children too cannot cover the distance to access a school.
Averagely, these communities have a total population of 20,230 with 15.2 per cent being children. Children population in these communities is expected to grow at the current growth rate of 2.7 of the District. The implication is that, a lot of children from communities with similar or same characteristics like Meru risk attaining education and also the situation will increase the number of child labor cases in this community.
This situation is affecting the development of the Meru and the general development of Tanzania and it is in this light that the FORTUNE KIDS AND EDUCATION FOUNDATION , a local NGO operating in the MERU-ARUSHA has designed a project “Build a Primary school, Secondary and College” to provide this community with an educational facility to help improve the social well-being of children from these community.
