Africa School Assistance Project | Building Schools in Africa

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ASAP

Opportunity Through Education

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Who We Are

The first class of 96 Kupanda girls in northern Tanzania! — ASAP’s Kupanda Scholars in Tanzania

The Africa School Assistance Project (ASAP) empowers and creates opportunities for Tanzanians, particularly girls, by removing obstacles to quality education and learning.

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Why? Because education, more than any other sector of development, seeds dramatic improvement in poverty reduction, gender equality, health outcomes, child immunization, HIV/AIDS prevention, environmental protection and wildlife conservation. Simply put, widely available public education will lead to a prosperous, peaceful and sustainable future for Africa.

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For now ASAP has chosen to focus on Tanzania because it struggles with one of the worst education systems in East Africa. Our solution is to systematically develop community schools and provide comprehensive support for girls in rural regions of Tanzania who face a dismal future without an education.

Volunteers painting some new classrooms in 2013 — Volunteers painting new classrooms

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ASAP also leads groups of volunteers to Africa each June to lend a hand in the school construction process. This powerful concept of bega kwa bega (Swahili for “shoulder to shoulder”) has been central to our model since the beginning. Check out the volunteer page for more details and to watch a short video about this amazing experience!

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ASAP is a 501(c)3 and is an NGO registered with the Government of the United Republic of Tanzania.

The Kupanda Project:

Secondary Education For Girls

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Did you know...96% of rural Tanzanian girls drop out before they finish lower secondary school?

Something must be done to address this high drop out rate because the benefits of education for girls are indisputable. Girls with a secondary education have higher family incomes, marry later, have fewer children and at an older age, invest into their children’s education and immunize their children 50% more than mothers who are not educated. And AIDS spreads twice as quickly among uneducated girls than among girls with education. Simply put, girl’s education is the single most powerful investment to shape a better future for Tanzania.

Kupanda1 — KUPANDA = (Swahili) To rise; To grow; To cultivate

For this reason, ASAP created The Kupanda Project for Girls, an innovative approach to comprehensively support girls to gain a quality secondary school education in rural Tanzania. The idea is simple – bring together, under one program, myriad supports for Tanzanian girls so they can safely access school and complete their lower secondary education. The Kupanda Project will raise completion rates for girls at rural lower secondary schools to 50% or higher by building dormitories and providing girls with personal support, academic programs and a leadership & empowerment curriculum. Perhaps most importantly, Kupanda includes a strategy for engaging and educating the community (especially men and boys) about the importance of girl’s education.

The Kupanda Project is a replicable model that can be implemented in rural communities across Tanzania and other East African countries. By achieving this scale, ASAP will contribute to overall gender equality and female empowerment in Tanzania and across Africa.

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Our commitment to a “whole girl” approach is why ASAP was one of only a few nonprofits selected in 2016 to join Let Girls Learn, a Obama era government effort to combat the harsh challenges that keep adolescent girls from attending and completing school around the world.