Teen Raises $25,000 For Tanzanian School

The one-room elementary school in a poor village in Tanzania was little more than a rusted shed. There was no electricity, running water or plumbing. Some students sat on benches, others on the dirt floor. There were no desks. On one wall hung a chalkboard, but the teacher couldn't afford chalk.

The scene was so disturbing to Ashley Speyer, a 17-year-old from the District who spent her summer vacation last year in Africa volunteering at the school, that she returned home determined to build a new school for the children of Moivaro village.

The rising senior at Sidwell Friends School worked with a lawyer to set up her own nonprofit organization and raised the $25,000 needed to build the school from classmates, relatives and family friends. Speyer hired a native Tanzanian to construct the building, work she has monitored through e-mailed photographs.

Yesterday, Speyer and her mother, Mary, returned to Moivaro for another summer. They hope to put the finishing touches on the new school -- painting the walls, setting up the desks -- and open it to Moivaro's children.

"I went on this trip, saw an opportunity to make a difference and was inspired by the villagers," Ashley Speyer said at her home in Northwest Washington, recalling her experience last summer.

"I was inspired to be a lasting part of the community," she added. "We had an opportunity to really make a difference for a nominal amount, and once you're granted an opportunity you have a responsibility to see it through. It's a powerful thing."

The old school was demolished to make way for the new one, which will provide classroom space for about 75 children. The building also will serve as a venue for village gatherings. The building only cost about $25,000, because labor and materials are relatively inexpensive.

"The simplicity of what we were able to do is what is so powerful," said Mary Speyer, a former fundraiser for Democratic politicians. "It's a very simple way to make something happen that has such a big impact."

Ashley Speyer said she hopes the new facility and more modern classroom materials, such as desks, will help make a difference in the schooling of children.

"With poverty and disease so prevalent in the culture, it's so important to have a good education, to have knowledge, to succeed and get a job and end the cycle of poverty," Ashley Speyer said.

Jessica Schwartz, 20, a junior at George Washington University who is from Pittsburgh, traveled with the Speyers last summer and helped Ashley with the school.

"This village was in such need of something," Schwartz said. "To see what they used to have and see what we've built them, it's really going to change their lives. These kids don't have shoes. They don't have anything. But they go to school because they want to learn."