UHURU – A grassroots nursery and preparatory school established by Jake Combe.
UHURU – Swahili Language – meaning ‘freedom’
Encountering problems of poverty and limited education in the developing world, I had a unique insight into life and culture. Through acceptance, understanding, and an openness to learn, cultural and religious differences can be minimised to allow equality to flourish.
Compelled to find a way to help the impoverished Usa River community of Tanzania, I remained in the village for a year where I established an education centre and small scale farm. After securing a local house and completing renovations of the building, I created a two-level curriculum system for the two classes. The school consisted of 48 students, two teachers, a cook/cleaner, and a director.
I had a very direct and practical approach with student engagement and interaction, liaising with families and local leaders, and staff training and development. I even designed the uniform and chose the colour scheme.
With the school up and running, and proving to be a success, I then turned my attention to searching for opportunities of incorporating small-scale business techniques to create a profit that would allow the school to become a self-sustainable operation, free from the crippling dependency of philanthropy.
My skill in administration and management in a remote and marginalised community developed during my time in Tanzania. After witnessing the sheer scale of poverty and absence of suitable opportunities of education to escape the cyclical nature of dependency, I designed, constructed and established an education centre for underprivileged children.
In an unfamiliar environment, I devoted myself to researching and familiarising myself with the hardships and problems endemic to the community. To gain trust and acceptance with the locals, I learnt the native language and dedicated myself to adapting to African customs and lifestyle.
It was always important to me to avoid implementing my own belief systems developed from life in Australia, aware that my intention was not to change the character of the locals but to support them in finding and developing the tools to take ownership of their own prosperity.
Without technical support and computing systems, I established book-keeping and administration procedures to facilitate the successful operation of the education centre. Through trial and error, and persistance, I successfully ensured structural processes and systems that allowed the continuing operation of the centre after I left Tanzania.
Navigating a governmental system of corruption and embedded distrust of white people, I developed positive relationships with governmental officials, local families and surrounding businesses. I also recruited, trained and managed a core employee base of local workers, who were encouraged to develop initiative and ownership of the program.
