A palatable education
When 22-year-old Australian Gemma Rice went to volunteer in East Africa, she witnessed firsthand the results of people in the Third World caught in the cycle of poverty, intensified by lack of education.
After years of volunteer work in Uganda and East Africa, Gemma returned home to rural Australia to a teaching job and a comfortable lifestyle, but never forgot the poverty and suffering she left behind.
Her powers of persuasion honed by growing up with seven brothers, Gemma convinced friends and family members to pledge at least $5 a month to fund two young women to go to school in Uganda.
From this humble beginning the East African Fund Incorporated was born and is now a registered Australian charity. Schools, institutions, businesses, Inner Wheel and Rotary Clubs throughout Australia pledged assistance. People helped with computers, library books, school books, teaching aids, classroom equipment, sports equipment, sewing machines, clothes and other goods to make Gemma’s dream of starting a school a reality.
In February 2002, Gemma founded The School of St Jude in Arusha, Northern Tanzania, in East Africa. The school opened its doors to three very small, bright and underprivileged students, with one teacher and a single classroom. Nine years later it has about 1500 students, spread across three schools and two boarding campuses, and employs over 350 local staff.
Each year new classrooms are built for the new intake of students. Sponsorship of buses has allowed children, who would need to start walking at 4am, to get a ride to school and sponsorship of teachers has allowed students to be taught by the best local Tanzanian teachers, assisted by highly-qualified Western teachers.
The School of St Jude now has more than 3,000 supporters, mostly from Australia but also from countries around the world. The founder, now Gemma Sisia, has been recognised with an Order of Australia and her bestselling biography was published in 2007.
The initiative has now spread to the kitchen with the publication of The Hopeful Chef, a feel-good, taste-great cookbook with recipes from the kitchens of leading restaurants and the school’s supporters, both in Australia and Africa.
The cookbook brings together some of the biggest names in the food industry, from food editors and stylists to Australia’s most loved chefs. Names like Bondi’s The Flying Squirrel Tapas Parlour, the Bronte Road Bistro at Waverley and Buon Ricordo in Paddington, as well as Aria, Rockpool Bar & Grill and Testsuya’s Restaurant, have contributed their sacred recipes.
Revealing the secrets for such mouth-watering dishes as Stuffed Zucchini Flowers and Macadamia & Parsley Crusted Lamb Cutlets, this cookbook will bring originality to your table and introduce you to the international flavours of Tanzania.
The Hopeful Chef was developed by Kemp Strang, a Sydney-based commercial law firm and supporter of the school.
For more information contact Mark Cubit 0415 109 817or mark.cubit@planetwheeler.org
The Hopeful Chef can be purchased from the schools website www.schoolofstjude.co.tz
