THE OLIVE BRANCH FOR CHILDREN
academic support
Our leading 2024 Program Sponsor, LiUNA! Local 183, has been supporting students at The Olive Branch for Children for many years. One of their key educational contributions has been providing Academic Support scholarships.
Education disrupts the cycle of poverty and provides people with the ability to create independent, dignified lives that enrich their entire communities. TOBFC’s Academic Support program is one of our most important tools to create this change.
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Key to helping youth secure good jobs, education can be inaccessible for a variety of reasons, including expense and distance. Our Academic Support program targets the youth in our care, as well as from the areas we serve and the children of our incredible staff, ensuring students can connect to good quality education.
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TOBFC’s academic support ranges from the earliest academic levels through secondary school and on to the technical college, community college, and university levels. While early childhood education and primary school are important stages of education, their costs in Tanzania are significantly less expensive than the higher academic levels. The Academic Support program primarily funds our secondary school, community college and university students.
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TOBFC students are studying a broad range of programs at college and university, from engineering, law and electrical installation to theatre arts and nursing.
TOBFC has a large group of students that are now entering high school and
post-secondary studies. In 2023-24, there were 27 post-secondary students and 15 students at the secondary level. For the 2024-25 academic year, TOBFC has
31 college and university students and 22 high school students ready to learn.
While these numbers demonstrate the success of TOBFC’s educational programs, it places more financial demands on our organization. School fees, university fees, technical college fees, school transport, uniforms, school supplies and textbooks, along with accommodation and food for students while away studying, are the biggest and most important annual expenses for TOBFC. In recent years, we have had more students entering prestigious universities and studying engineering, health sciences and other programs that have higher fees. Since the pandemic, costs have risen sharply, especially for accommodation and food, and this is also true for students attending school.​​​​
The total costs related to our 2024-25 Academic Support program for our college and university students will exceed $60,000.
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We have both organizations and individuals, including many of our monthly donors, providing students with sponsorships that cover their living costs.
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Each sponsorship costs C$50 per month. For those who choose to support a child throughout their complete educational path, the total commitment would be between C$2,000 and C$10,000, depending on the student’s age and educational dreams.
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To learn more about sponsoring a student, please contact founder and CEO Deborah McCracken-Nangereke at info@theolivebranchforchildren.org
TOBFC also holds a Back-To-School Campaign each September to help finance costs for accommodation, food, school supplies and other required items for our post-secondary students as well as for our high school students.
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Our students are working hard, achieving success and setting themselves up for a bright future thanks to the backing of LiUNA! Local 183 and all our wonderful sponsors.
STUDENT PROFILE: Rahim (2nd year Math and Statistics)
Rahim has benefited from LiUNA! Local 183 scholarship funding since 2018 and has reached truly incredible heights. He is currently working on a Bachelor’s Degree in Math and Statistics at the University of Dar es Salaam, where he is the top math student. In 2024, Rahim was selected to compete in a nationwide math competition for the top university-level math students – and he won! This great achievement means that next year Rahim will go to Ghana to compete on behalf of Tanzania.
