The Meserani Project is a unique ‘home-grown’ charity with a primary focus on providing primary, secondary, further and higher education for young people in an area of East Africa where such education opportunities were not accessible to them due to poverty, family circumstances and lack of educational provision. Because the project is run at their own expense by a group of six trustees from Teesside and North Yorkshire, and there are no administrative costs at all, every penny that is raised is spent directly on the project in Tanzania – nothing at all is syphoned off as necessary expenses.
Middlesbrough Erimus Rotary have been a major supporter of the Meserani Project for many years. Thirty-seven young people from impoverished backgrounds at Meserani have been able to access education due to sponsorship by the club as a whole, and by individual club members - amongst these young people there are now doctors, teachers, horticulturalists, nurses and sales managers.
In 2024 the first secondary school in the Meserani district opened to pupils, and Erimus Rotary have been instrumental in funding resources in support of the work that The Meserani Project is undertak ing at the school. We have provided bunk beds, water harvesting systems, solar power systems and reusable sanitary protection for the female pupils.
Peter Swan (one of our Honorary members) is Chairman of The Meserani Project, which operates in a remote area of Tanzania. At a Middlesbrough Erimus Rotary meeting earlier this year he reported on the progress made with the newly built school that took its second intake of pupils at the start of January. Meserani Secondary School opened in 2024 and is situated in a remote area which is inhabited predominantly by members of the Maasai tribe.
Two major donations have been made to the project by Erimus Rotary and its European Club partners in Germany, the Netherlands and Poland. These have funded the school building’s water harvesting system and have provided reusable sanitary protection for all girls at the school. These initiatives have enhanced the health and well-being of the pupils as well as serving as excellent examples of conservation and environment protection.
A new initiative for the charity, ‘sponsorship bundles’, was the brainchild of Geoff Taylor, a long-standing member of Erimus Rotary. The initiative has attracted significant interest, resulting already in the funding of 62 bundles ranging from £10 to £100. Donors are able to pay for a selection of options:
Five fruit trees and five shade trees to be planted at the school.
A set of ten text books.
Reusable sanitary protection for a female pupil for her full four years at the school.
Provision to a student that cannot afford it, everything they need to start at the school, including equipment and school uniform.
Peter also reported back on the impact of pupil sponsorship by members of Erimus Rotary since January 2011. A total of 32 young people have been sponsored to be educated in Tanzania. Most were sponsored through secondary school but some have been sponsored through vocational college, A’ Level studies and university. The sponsorship programme has been incredibly successful and The Meserani Project currently has three students who were sponsored through secondary school and A’ Levels being sponsored through a five-year medical degree at university, and soon to qualify as doctors! As Peter highlighted in his talk, these are young people who were brought up in mud huts, sleeping on the floor.
Peter thanked members of Erimus Rotary for their ongoing support, and reminded them of the enormous impact they are having on young people living in poverty 4,000 miles away, who now have a vision and a future.