On Friday, February 5th, a delicious new Tanzanian milk tea will launch on the menus of the Global Cup Café and the Daily Grind – and the proceeds will go toward a good cause! Students for Students International (S4Si) is partnering with UNC’s Student Global Health Committee (SGHC) to raise money for S4Si’s Emergency Medical Fund. S4Si is a student-run nonprofit based at UNC-Chapel Hill that provides secondary school scholarships to high-achieving young women in Zanzibar, Tanzania, many of whom would not otherwise be able to continue their education past primary school.
The Emergency Medical Fund is a new S4Si initiative that aims to break down barriers to education for S4Si’s scholars. One challenge facing many young students in Tanzania is when illness prevents them from attending school for a prolonged period of time. In a country where the average annual income is $250, most families cannot afford medicine for their children, even for medicine used to treat common diseases. Thus, when a student becomes sick, she is often unable to attend school, causing her to fall behind in her work and resulting in poor grades and an inability to succeed in her studies.
Fortunately, many of the health conditions keeping scholars out of school can be treated with inexpensive medical assistance. This is where the Emergency Medical Fund will make its greatest impact. Local mentors employed by S4Si in Zanzibar will oversee the fund and identify scholars in need of medical assistance. Scholars will be treated so they may return to school as quickly as possible.
One scholar’s story inspired S4Si to establish this fund. Zuhura, a Form V S4Si scholar from Stonetown, Zanzibar, has a heart condition that prevents her from consistently attending school. In the future, Zuhura hopes to be a scientist and work to improve the educational system in Tanzania and universities in Zanzibar. Since her family was only able to afford a small portion of the medicine needed to treat her condition, Zuhura was unable to attend school for over a month, putting her at a disadvantage to her classmates. When Zuhura felt well enough to attend school for a day, she collected her assignments and returned home with hopes that she would be able to independently teach herself what she had missed. If her family was able to afford the $20 a month to pay for her medicine, Zuhura would have been able to attend her classes and begin a speedier road to recovery. With the help of the Emergency Medical Fund, she will now be able to afford medicine, and her illness will no longer hold her back.
To learn more about these organizations, please visit http://studentorgs.unc.edu/sghc and http://www.s4siunc.org.
When a girl in the developing world has received seven or more years of education, she marries four years later and has 2.2 fewer children.