We all know that a vacation from work & the stresses of everyday life does the soul & body good….but what if your vacation could benefit someone you’ve never met?
Rogers Vacation Rentals is very pleased to announce that as of May 2018 a portion of our guests’ payments for their stays with us will be donated to Village Schools International (VSI). Village Schools International is close to our hearts so we are excited to be able to help support their efforts in this way.
In 2016 Valerie was invited to go with friends to Tanzania, Africa to meet the founders of VSI, Steve and Sue Vinton. While there we were able to visit several secondary schools, a primary school and the new Leadership College recently built in the village of Igoda.
The primary mission of VSI is to partner with villages to build schools in Tanzania, Malawi & Zambia so that those children who would otherwise never get to go to school would have the opportunity to get an education. They are working towards what they call their “impossible dream”: the day when every child in every village gets to go to school.
Most children in Tanzania are not able to achieve more than the primary education received at a government school (because only the very brightest students are picked to attend secondary school). According to VSI:
“This year more than 2,000,000 children should finish primary school in Tanzania, Malawi and Zambia. Less than a third of them will be selected by their governments to get to go on to secondary school. Most of the rest of them will never again get the chance to go to school.”
VSI partners with villages who have requested help to build their own schools for their children. The villagers are responsible for donating the land and making all of the bricks needed to build the school as well as pay for the teachers’ salaries and books. Each family must pay for the child’s school uniforms. VSI helps raise funds for the metal roofs, the infrastructure & actual building of the school and the curriculum.
A secondary mission of VSI is to send Christian missionary teachers to these villages in Africa each September to teach an intensive English course for 4 months in order to prepare new students to enter high school. “We share our faith in Christ with our students and by becoming accepted members of the community we are able to share the Gospel with those who have never heard it.”
A natural outcome of becoming so involved in the lives of these villagers has been medical care (including an AIDS clinic in the village of Madisi) and community development where there was none before.
We hope that our guests will be as excited as we are to know that because they chose to stay in a Rogers Vacation Rentals property during their vacations a donation will be made to support this amazing ministry in Africa!
To get a “bird’s eye” view of the VSI school locations you can view this Google Earth Tour (you must have Google Earth downloaded on your computer).
The photos in the gallery below were taken during Val’s visit to Tanzania in 2016. To view a video that includes these photos and many more click here or view the Video player at the top right of this page.
