Bally Barker Blog

FIGHTING POVERTY THROUGH EDUCATION A most informative and inspiring evening was held on March 18 th 2025. Gemma Sisia spoke to a combined clubs’ meeting hosted by Belrose Rotary and held at Forestville RSL. Members and guests from 5 other Rotary clubs attended.     Pres Diana Hart (left) and Gemma Sisia In 2002, Gemma opened the School of St Jude in Tanzania on a gifted piece of two acres of land. The school started with a mission to provide free, quality education to high-performing students from disadvantaged backgrounds in Northern Tanzania. Today St Jude’s includes three schools, 1,800 students on full scholarships, almost 350 staff and a groundbreaking tertiary program with over 300 tertiary graduates.   Her presentation went through the years of building the school, its excellent academic record, prioritising nutrition with daily meals and clean water, optimising health checks with international volunteers, boarding facilities for thr...

Tuesday Feb 16   Our inspirational guest speaker at our meeting (via ZOOM) was Gemma Sisia - founder of the school of St Jude Gemma Sisia The School of St Jude is a charity-funded school located in the city of Arusha, in the northern Arusha Region of Tanzania. The school, located across three campuses, provides free primary and secondary education to the poorest and brightest children of the Arusha Region. It was founded by Australian Gemma Sisia in 2002, based on the belief that education is the best way to fight poverty. Gemma statted the first class in 2002 with three students; today 1,400 students are borders at the school, plus approx. 400 living locally in a fifty Km radius attend daily. They are collected by 26 buses (10 coaches, 7 mini vans; the remainder 4WD that pick-up /drop-off from the unmade dirt roads). There are 300 staff at the school in key areas of teaching, head office, Alumni and fund-raising. In earlier years the staff was largely international, but toda...