In Tanzania there are very few affordable opportunities for young children to attend nursery school. Most children start primary school aged seven years having had no early years education. They have lost out on the most vital years for learning.

In January 2010 SWTz opened SWTz Nursery School, starting with one class for our own two to six year olds. We also opened the school to children from the local community, primarily those in impoverished situations, but also to some fee-paying students.

We have now built our own two classroom nursery school, fully equipped with toilets, and an additional dining room/activities room. We have the capacity to take 40 students. We have two qualified Tanzanian teachers, supplemented by young volunteers who bring vitality and fun ideas to the classroom.

We provide a quality nursery education, taught in English with Kiswahili as a core subject, to those children who would otherwise not have an opportunity to attend nursery school.

In conjunction with the SWTz Nursery School we offer full day care facilities, to enable impoverished single mothers to work during the day. Many single mums in Tanzania struggle to live as they cannot work and look after their small children at the same time, and they cannot afford to pay someone to care for their children. The social welfare system doesn’t provide benefits, and some mums get so desperate they needlessly put their children into children’s centres when all they need is somewhere safe to place their kids during the day.

As well as nursery class, day care children receive a hot nutritious lunch, a refreshing nap, and an afternoon of supervised play. As well as for impoverished children, for whom we find sponsors, we also offer a few places to fee-paying day care children.