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Education is Light e.V.

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How it works

By founding our association in Germany, named „Education is Light e.V.,“ we laid the foundation for MILELO. To build the school, our friends Lothy and Angel founded the Tanzanian NGO “MILELO Tanzania”. All members of our team work on a voluntary basis. 100% of the profits go directly to the MILELO School in Tanzania.

Why?

In Arusha there are plenty of children who have no opportunity to attend school. While private schools are expensive, public schools are cheaper, but even these require fees (e.g. school uniforms, books, transportation...) – sums that many families simply cannot afford. Additionally, public schools often have large classrooms with up to 50+ children, making it difficult for students to concentrate and receive individual attention. As a result, many families choose to have their children work during the day, rather than sending them to school.

What makes MILELO Special ✨

🥑 Free Meals

Milelo addresses this issue by providing not only free education but also a free meal for the children. For many families, this is a crucial factor in sending their children to school, as food is often limited. It is almost impossible to concentrate and learn with an empty stomach. Therefore the children at MILELO school receive a small breakfast and lunch.

🏫 Smaller Classes

Through our initiative, we aim to offer children access to education while creating an environment with smaller class sizes and personalized attention, allowing them to fully realize their potential. Our first MILELO class consists of only 30 children.

🇬🇧 English Lessons

At MILELO, a special focus is placed on English lessons to ensure that children have access to secondary education and better chances on the job market. Therefore, English instruction will begin as early as Grade 1.

🇹🇿 Proudly local

The MILELO school is led by a local school management team and teachers. Through close cooperation with our partner NGO and our friends Angel and Lothy in Arusha, we ensure that MILELO stays locally rooted and culturally sensitive. As a support association, we listen to local needs and only provide the necessary structures and resources. Of course our subjects correspond to the curriculum for the first grade in Tanzania and we have a local Swahili teacher.

Recent Activities

New Pencil Cases ✏️

All children got pencil cases from our partner school "Weingartenschule Kriftel". This makes a big difference! Thank you so much.

Book Donation 📚

We received books sponsored by the Reinhold Beitlich Stiftung – a huge thank you! Our students and teachers are thrilled with them! They make learning more engaging.

Plant Project 🌱

Each child grew their own bean plant. They learned a lot through the process and had so much fun along the way. Watching the plants grow was such an exciting experience!

1st Parent Meeting 👨‍👩‍👧‍👦

All parents came together to learn how they can support their children, hear about the vision of our school, and understand the rules they and their children need to follow.

MILELO Olympiad 🏅

We had a wonderful sports day with 10 different activities that the children completed in three teams. They had so much fun, and the energy that day was truly something special!

Opening Day 13/01/2025

We welcomed our first class. The opening day was emotional and full of excitement. We’re grateful to offer these children a safe place to learn, grow, and dream!

New Inventory 🪑

30 chairs and desks were handmade for our classroom. They look amazing and even have storage space under the tabletop. Thank you so much!

Kitchen Construction 🍽️

Thanks to Feike GmbH, a kitchen was built on our school grounds. From now on, our cook Mama Africa will prepare meals here every day for the children. Thank you so much!

School Uniform 👕

The tailor measured all 30 children so they can receive their new school uniforms. Each child gets two shirts, a sweater, and two pairs of trousers or skirts.

Renting Agreement 🏫

We finally found the right property with the perfect building for our first 30 children! We’re incredibly excited for everything that’s ahead.

School Compound

The school building has three rooms: one class room, a small office room and an extra room for eating lunch together. We have three outside toilets, a school yard and a kitchen. We are so happy that every child has their own desk where they can store their school supplies. The desks and chairs were made by a local artisan craftsman.

A typical day at MILELO School

Every morning a school bus brings the children to school and picks them up. It’s awesome to see the children arriving at school with their uniforms with our MILELO logo. We have an incredibly sweet Swahili teacher named “teacher Baby Stevens”. Since a lot of kids arrive without breakfast, our cook Mama Africa serves a small breakfast at 10 o’clock and lunch at 12.30. The subjects are: Reading and Writing in Swahili and English, Math, Taking Care of Environment and Health, Culture, Arts and Sports. The subjects correspond to the curriculum for the first grade in Tanzania. The children will be picked up again at 2:00 PM.

Thank You

All of this would not be possible without you! We want to thank the members of “Education Is Light e.V.”, our volunteers, the people who believed in us and donated, the sponsors and of course our NGO founders Lothy and Angel — without which none of this would have been possible! The children are worth all the effort and they deserve for us to keep going!

Here’s to a very special year 2026!

How it all began

Our story began in 2018 when we met in Arusha, Kijenge and a deep friendship developed between Miri, Lenni, and Lothy (Mi-Le-Lo). In 2021 Lothy played an important role in the engagement of Lenni and Miri, which took place in the Maasai village of his extended family. Since then, we’ve dreamed of building a school together. Now, eight years later, we have turned this dream into reality and we are full of energy and determination for our primary school. We firmly believe in the good in life and the transformative power of education. MILELO relies on the support of Education is Light e.V. to collect verified donations. The non-profit association was officially registered in March 2025 with seven founding members. You can get to know them in the section "Education is Light e.V.".