Moshi Campus News – 14 Sep 2024

First off let me say Happy Maulid to all those that celebrate. Please note that in Tanzania this is a public holiday so there are no classes on Monday.

This weekend will give students and staff a chance to have a bit of a pause before heading into the next part of the term head on. There is a lot happening so please read through the newsletter to learn more.

I am going to highlight that next Friday we will be having the 24 Hour-run. This is an annual event designed to help raise money for scholarships. It goes much further than being just a fund raiser however, it is an opportunity for the community to come together to support some of its members and to bond. Not all students are able to contribute financially so they contribute in different ways. They organize this event, staff stalls, cook food and as seen below do other stunts to encourage those that can to give more. As you can see a group of students and staff have agreed to get their hair cut as we hit different financial targets. The first was hit this week so yesterday Daniel let Zena cut his hair then shave it. Actually, it served two purposes as Zena is looking at this for his personal project. Take a look at the picture below and see what you are willing to donate to get others to shave as well. I will note they can buy their hair back for a 1% donation of the pledged money at that point.

Bob Cofer – Head of Campus

Who is next?

This Sunday we will be having the second Cultural Night as a part of the Latin American Heritage Month. Join us at 7pm in Rafiki hall to learn about Colombia, Costa Rica and El Salvador. We really appreciated the support last time around and we hope that you will come out to support us again this week.

As a school community, we hope to nurture a “collective duty of care for ourselves, each other and the environment.” Much of this focus is outward facing and we are involved in so many initiatives across and beyond the community. We want our students, teachers and, indeed, parents to care about having a positive impact on the lives of others.

Today, I wanted to highlight one of our M1-3 Service Groups, called, simply, “Appreciation.” This group has recently turned their attention inwards, to consider all of the many people who work each and every day to make a positive difference across our campus.  Each week, with the help of Ms. Rachel, they meet to plan, create and implement ideas to show appreciation for those in our community who support us.

This week, they made and delivered bespoke cards, slices of homemade cake and delicious brownies to many of our staff who work so hard, often ‘behind the scenes,’ to make our campus successful, including our front office and finance team, the kitchen staff, our cleaners, our askaris and so on. These little tokens of appreciation have been very warmly received as you can see by the smile on Inyasi’s face.

Opportunities like this develop a sensitivity to the needs of the community and, in time, society in general, an awareness of the role of the individual within the community and, above all, an altruistic attitude. So, if you are lucky, you might be visited by the “Appreciation” team in the near future…if you deserve it!

Ben Morley – Deputy Head of Campus

In a conversation I had with a student this week, we concluded that doing the DP is like swimming in an ocean: just when one wave passes over you, another one comes, and then another, and then another.

The waves are like deadlines: just when one is past, another one arrives. The best way to survive is to swim towards the waves, duck down and then come up for air.

This is exactly what the D2s are doing this semester. They are battling the waves of CAS, the Extended Essay, Outdoor Pursuits, University applications, Internal Assessments, External Assessments, homework, class assessments, sports, service, and the list goes on. And they are doing this well! Let us remind them to keep their heads up, swim towards the wave, find moments to come up for air and then reach out if they need help.

The D1s are heading into assessment season too as teachers finish units. Parents can follow their child’s academic progress on our online platform Life. If you need help setting this up, please let us know. Some D1s have shared that the homesickness is setting in as the initial high has passed. This is normal for this time of year and they, too, need encouragement to see through the rest of the quarter well.    

Thank you to those parents who attended the parent zoom last week. It was lovely to put some faces to names. If you did not receive the zoom link, this means we don’t have your correct email address on our system. Please make sure your details are correct so you receive the updated information. We are looking forward to our next meeting in the second quarter.

Catherine Dowie – DP Coordinator

On Thursday, M5 Individuals and Societies with a few DP students had a special guest speaker. Mr. Cy Johnson (Babu Townes) came in to speak to students about his early life growing up in Mississippi in the 1960s, a key location for many events in the US during the Civil Rights Movement. Students also got the chance to ask him some questions about his memories and what life was like back then. Students really enjoyed hearing his talk and it provided some real historical context to some of the events they have been studying.

For many D1s a focus this week has been on Project Week. This takes place from Monday 4th to Friday 8th November. Project Week is a chance for students to experience life outside the classroom and to plan for themselves. Students had a chance to submit proposals for this and these were reviewed by a committee of staff and students. After this, students were asked to fill in an information sheet to share with their peers, and we are now at the stage of students choosing what they would like to do.

The projects vary from staying in Moshi and working at KCMC or going out every day to plant trees to travelling to a farm outside of Dar es Salaam and working there or working with an NGO in Dar with many more in between. We are offering 21 different projects. Students will have a supervisor who will guide them through the planning process and in some cases the supervisor will travel with them.

Students who are not on campus will be given a stipend as a contribution to expenses but this may not cover everything. As part of the planning process the group organisers have come up with what they think the additional costs will be, your students have been asked to discuss this with you. Please note the costs given are approximate but we hope accurate to $50. After the groups are decided more information about the projects will be shared on Life.

Project Week is an enjoyable but full on and enriching experience. Please talk to your students about what they want to do and why and any costs involved.

I mentioned a few weeks ago about CAS or Creativity, Activity and Service. D1 students are now expected to record this on Learn. As a parent, you will be able to see what they have done. After logging in to Learn, in the panel on the Left-Hand Side you will see IB Data, if you select this then you can see CAS portfolios. Don’t worry if it is blank now as students have only just been told about it.

In a couple of weeks we will start the CAS interviews. This is a chance for students to clarify any doubts they have about CAS and to start making plans.

Dear UWCEA Community,

This week, we held our final introductory meeting with our Uja Families, aka host families. The Uja program allows our students to connect with local families and form a bond that goes beyond the campus life. At this point, all students who signed up for the program, have been allocated to a family in the community and now will be reaching out to their Uja to connect. Thank you to all our community members for contributing to this program and making it a success. It is much appreciated!

As we are getting closer to the break, residential students and parents, please review the departure and arrival dates document I shared in the email with the residential parents and let me know if you have any questions. Once you have booked your flights, please fill out the form below to help us arrange airport transfer and other logistics. Thank you!

PYP/MYP October Break Departures and Arrivals Form

DP October Break Departures and Arrivals From

Thank you all for your support!
Adnan Mackovic – Head of Residential Life

M1 Science
It was quite an “eggy” situation in M1’s Science class. Students turned into scientists and conducted an experiment to determine the safest method for transporting fragile eggs. They tested various protective containers, simulating real-world conditions. Through systematic observation and experimentation, they now have data on the effectiveness of different packaging solutions. The findings from their experiment will contribute to responding to their inquiry questions next week! Don’t try this at home!

M4 Language and Literature English
In our M4 English class, we have been diving deeper into our unit “Narrative and News” which has to do with perspectives in delivering news. For our creative summative assessment, we were assigned with the task to produce a newspaper article that talks about the upcoming 24 Hour Run event. In order for us to tackle this task, we had to consider the parts of a newspaper article that we have been learning about, but also go undercover as reporters in order to obtain information.
Jean M -M4

M1 I&S – TED Talks! 
In I&S class, students prepared and presented TED Talks on the issue of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch! They explored the topic and presented it with clarity and passion. Their ability to engage Ms. Rachel and present solutions demonstrated critical thinking and effective communication skills, leaving us inspired by their dedication to environmental issues.

Students say Asante Sana to the Community
M1, M2 and M3 students worked with Ms. Rachel to prepare thank you cards, brownies and sweets to give back to people in our community that often work behind the scenes to keep everyone safe. It was a very heartwarming initiative! MYPs, you rock!

Have a great week ahead,
Farah Fawaz – MYP Coordinator

This week, the first reefs trip of the year departed on Wednesday, to Fish Eagle Point where students will be undertaking various activities. This includes beach clean-ups, urchin removal (fish feeding), mangroves climb, snorkelling excursions, kayak expedition, and coral ball moving with the raft. The students develop their various water-related skills and start contributing to the Coral Reefs Regeneration Project. After a long bus journey, the team successfully arrived. Full write up next week!

The M1’s and new M2-3’s will also be on their first OP trip of the year departing this weekend. Students will be led by Mr Isaac who will introduce them to the fundamentals of outdoor education as we deliver it at UWC East Africa. The trip includes short hikes and workshops on camping skills, cooking skills, basic first aid skills, OP equipment use, environment recognition, wildlife observation, orientation, and more. For many this will be their first camping experience and we hope they have a brilliant time.

Planning is continuing for the next series of trips which will be our Discovery Rides to Simba Farm and Peaks to North Pare over the weekend of 28th – 29th September. Once again, these are proving very popular with demand exceeding spaces. Please keep a close eye on future communication.

The OP Team

Leopards on the Move!

Primary “warm up” swim gala will be traveling on Tuesday Sept. 17.  Good luck swimmers. 

Preparation has already begun for the 23rd annual Sports Weekend.  We have sent out invitations to over 12 schools around Tanzania and are working now on the registration process.  It takes a lot to organize, but it is a great weekend.

We are looking to finalize a sports jersey inventory so we can have each team showing that Leopard pride on this busy sports weekend.  If any student still has a sports jersey from last year, can they please return that to the PE office as soon as possible so we can plan accordingly.

As you have read from a letter from our Head of Campus, we are moving beyond NTSAA.  At Moshi campus this means we will be searching for more local opportunities in sports along with the scheduled events with our Arusha campus.  To help in this process I would like to ask any community member that has connections with local Moshi area schools that might be interested in friendly matches with our students in all sports to please contact me.  Thank you for your help.

Coach Pickell

In Friday’s gathering, P2/3 showed us how easy it is to make friends. All it takes is kindness and the ability to sometimes compromise. The children performed skits showing us the importance of caring and sharing. They also sang a lovely song about being friends. At the end of the day on Friday, the P2/3 children hosted a friendship picnic. Their beautifully decorated invitations promised us fun, games and delicious food and they kept that promise! The Student Voice led us in some ice breaker games and then we split into teams to play games where there were no winners – making friends was the aim of the game. After that we feasted on delicious snacks – thank you very much to everyone who sent in some food. This event would not have been possible without the energy and enthusiasm of the P2/3 teachers – thank you very much to Ms. Kacey, Ms. Durriyah and Ms. Zitha.

Tuesday 17th, is the swim meet at Kennedy House. Coach Sabini will be at the pool on Sunday 12:00 – 6pm and encourages any student travelling with the swim team to come along for some weekend practice. The following Tuesday (24th September) some primary children will be heading back to Kennedy House for an athletics meet. Josh Pickell will send out the invitations on Life. The week before the break, on Monday, 30th September, the P2-6 classes will be going to Arusha for some fun and games and the opportunity to make some friends on our sister campus.

We have 2 events happening on Wednesday, 18th September. The Student Voice have arranged a Crazy Hair Spirit Day when your child is encouraged to wear their hair in a wacky, silly or funny style. Wigs or interesting hair decorations are also welcome. See the poster below. That same day is our 24 Minute Run. This is an opportunity to raise awareness about the 24 Hour Run which will be happening on Friday, 20th September. During the 24 hour run the Student Voice will direct us to travel round the pitch in an interesting way (backwards, crawling, kangaroo hopping etc! 

Deborah Mills – PYP Coordinator

We completed our look at emotions and the thoughts we have with them. This week, we discussed angry and sad feelings. We also explored ways to help when we feel these emotions. Knowing what you can do when you are in distress is good. Talking with mum, dad, or teacher and hugs were clear winning strategies for combating anger and sadness.

Next week, we will continue our look at families. We will use the pictures that you shared at the beginning of the school year and send home some family questions. The answers to the questions will help us do some comparisons. We are part of a community which is diverse and wonderful. It is interesting to find out the differences and similarities within our families. We will learn how to use block graphs to collect all our information.

Thank you, Kairi’s parents, for allowing us to celebrate his birthday. Thank you to everyone who brought snacks to share during the Friendship picnic. We had a very lovely time. The pictures will be in our shared album. The photo shared above shows us enjoying yummy goodies and celebrating Kairi.

Mboka Mwasongwe

“New friends, not so hard to make.” This pleasant song has been stuck in my head for a few days now! I hope that the message of the unit has become stuck in your children’s minds as well, it is good to be a true friend. Thank you for your generous support of the Friendship Picnic and your presence at the Gathering. The class was so excited to be planning both of these events. It was wonderful to have an event with all of the primary together.

Next week, we will take some time to wrap up and reflect on the Friendship unit but we will also introduce our new unit. I have switched the unit from Water to Light and Sound. (We will cover the Water unit in Quarter 3.)

There will not be Swimming on Tuesday next week as both Coach Sabini and Coach T are away with students at a swim meet at Kennedy House. If we reschedule, I will send an email. Please plan for your child to do regular PE on Tuesday instead.

Kacey Buckley

Last week the P4/5 delved into learning about simple machines and on Friday we were able to put theory into practice. Many thanks to Baden Dowie who welcomed us into his Design Lab. The children had the opportunity to hammer nails into wood and lever them out again. They used screws and screwdrivers to join two pieces of wood. They used levers to open cans of paint and tried to split a piece of wood with a wedge. They had a tour of the lab and looked at pulleys and wheels and axles. Next week the children will go on a simple machines scavenger hunt at school and for home learning they will look for simple machines at home.

In maths we have been working on different addition strategies. Your child will bring some flashcards home next week to keep their addition skills sharp and speedy!

Cooking groups have started. Many thanks to Mama Nicholas. We had our first swim class of the semester on Thursday which went very well. The sun shone and everyone enjoyed themselves. Several of the P4/5 children are heading to Kennedy House on Tuesday for the swim meet. Good luck!

Deborah Mills

P6 is back in the pool! It was wonderful to enjoy the sunshine again, which gave us the perfect opportunity to start our swimming lessons. Under the guidance of Coach Sabini and Coach T, P6 practiced their starting positions and worked hard to improve their stroke techniques. By the end of the lesson, the children left the pool with big smiles, proud of their progress and efforts.

In Maths, P6 focused on developing their problem-solving skills, and in Where We Are In Place and Time, they continued their note-taking in preparation for their oral presentations next Friday.

The Friendship Picnic was a highlight this week, bringing everyone together to enjoy games, share food, and celebrate friendship. The atmosphere was joyful, and the food was delicious. A big thank you to Ms. Kacey, P2/3, and Student Voice.

Looking ahead, next Tuesday, P6 will participate in the swim meet at Kennedy House, and on Wednesday, we have both the 24-Minute Challenge and Crazy Hair Day to look forward to! It promises to be an exciting week.

Natasha Berri

Many of our D2 students are busy getting ready to apply to universities! The majority will start sending their first applications out at the end of October. The students have been learning about different educational opportunities around the world and also about how to best present themselves to universities in the application process. Many of our students choose to study in the United States because of the generous scholarships made available to UWC graduates through the Davis Scholars UWC partnership. If you’d like to learn more about this scholarship, watch this 32 minute video with Jon Lund from Luther College in Iowa. The passcode to watch is s3s=c.d1

While the U.S. is popular because of the Davis scholarships, our graduates go on to study and do great things all over the world and we work to expose our students to different opportunities.

On Friday, we had a visit from three of our Davis UWC Scholar universities in the U.S.: Grinnell College in Iowa, Wesleyan University in Connecticut and Smith College in Massachusetts. Next week, we’ll have in-person visits from the College of the Atlantic, Methodist University, Princeton University, and Columbia University as well as a virtual visit with Nottingham Trent University.

We have many more visits coming up! Please check the calendar regularly as we continue to add opportunities each week.

Exciting things are happening with the school’s Sustainability Committee! We have completed setting up the community waste station with new bins as well as paper recycling baskets which have been placed in all classrooms. A roof was also built so that the waste taken to our recycling plants would not get spoiled. To clarify, GREEN bins will receive PAPER waste, YELLOW bins will receive METAL waste, and BLUE bins will receive PLASTIC waste.

Last Thursday MYP mentors shared a video highlighting the importance of proper waste disposal. This will be useful as once students return from the reefs, we’ll test the classes to see how well they’re doing…

We’re also looking into applying for international environmental initiatives to boost recognition and funding for our projects. Stay tuned for updates on the upcoming Climate Summit and the bins locations for 24-hour run!

In addition, the MYP service focused on compost this week and we encourage everyone to get involved.

The committee is growing and getting ready for the smooth transition to the new D1s. We’re thrilled to see more students showing interest! If you’d like to join, reach out—we’d love to have you on board as we continue building a more sustainable campus!

Stay green! 🌱

Sustainability Committee

On Wednesday, during a break from his lessons, Mr. Mateusz happened to walk across the campus and stumbled upon a group of DP1 biology students who were, in some unusual way, trying to connect according to unfamiliar rules. Intrigued, he stopped to observe. It turned out that Ms. Mika, whose guiding finger can be seen in the foreground of the photo, had transformed her students into chemical compounds—such as amino acids and water—as indicated by the sticky notes attached to them. Following the rules of chemistry, the students’ task was to create a condensation reaction that would result in a dipeptide. Mr. Mateusz couldn’t resist the urge to become part of the process for a moment and decided to play the role of a free electron. Unfortunately, despite zipping through the student-compounds, he didn’t manage to initiate any reaction. What a phenomenal example of pedagogical creativity—hats off to Ms. Mika!

The D1 History students went on their second local history field trip last week. The focus of the trip was on the colonial era in Moshi, with an emphasis on power dynamics and systems of control. The five-hour tour of Moshi included a visit to what was once the Greek Orthodox Church, where students met with Ms. Sylvie Emanuel, who shared with students the memories of her decades of experience living in the Kilimanjaro region. The students then went to the Moshi train station, where they discussed colonial-era extraction of resources. From there, students toured the German boma, which still sits at the top of Boma Road. Students also explored Moshi’s Commonwealth Cemetery to learn about how the British memorialized their war dead. At Union Café, the students learned about KNCU and the origins of Chagga coffee production. Finally, students broke up into small groups to explore downtown Moshi, investigating the physical effects of what was once a town with legally imposed segregation.

An amazing thing is happening on the 27 September –The first blood drive of school year, organized by the KCMC Service in collaboration with the Tanzanian National Blood Bank!

It happens in Rafiki Hall, from 8 am until 5 pm.

There will be a doctor and a nurse present on-site at all times in case of any emergency. (You’re in safe hands!)

Did you know that donating blood actually improves your health too?

Blood donation boosts red blood cell production and other bone marrow functions, and the blood gets tested for a number of infections which may be life-saving.

You will also get to know your own blood group which is always good personal information to be aware of.

Blood donors are healthier!

In large studies over 50 years time, we can see that blood donors have better overall health outcomes. This is thought to be because of the periodic withdrawal of a small volume of blood (and blood iron), and due to the health checks they undergo before donation.

All equipment used in the Blood Drive is standardized WHO-supplied single-use sterile material.

Note: You can donate when you are older 16 years of age.

If you are under 18, please get parental consent before donating, either by filling out the form attached and presenting it, or through an email or text by your parents/guardians, and showing it at the registration table during the blood drive.

There will be snacks provided for everyone!

One donation of blood can save three lives, let us save lives together!