About us

The Swaziland Schools Projects raised more than £61,000.00, and the time came in 2008 when it was decided that there would be great benefit to be derived from setting up a registered charity, not least because of the extra funds gained through Gift Aid donations. There are eight trustees, most of whom have visited the work going on in Swaziland and some have lived there in the past. The contact person on the spot is the Revd. Jack Dobson who followed John Tibbs in being responsible for nine schools in and around Mbabane in the North of Swaziland. They knew each other in the 1960s – John as Rector of Mbabane and Jack then as a teacher at the Mbabane Trade School. Jack went to Swaziland in the 50s as a draftsman and builder and now finds himself employing builders whom he trained.

At first, basic classrooms were needed and then kitchens with secure stores to keep out predators. The daily food provided by the schools in included in the fees as is subsidized by government schemes with fortified soup and porridge. For some children this is the only meal they get in the day.

Twenty or so years ago Forbes Reef was among the poorest schools in Swaziland. (Before that it had not even qualified for teachers paid by the government, but the church had to pay an unqualified teacher to look after twenty children in a small dark thatched church building). For these reasons it was necessary to build up the school almost from scratch and so over the past decade a great deal has gone into building it up, and now it is among the best primary schools in the district.

Much attention has been paid to Enkhaba Community Primary School in recent years. There are two reasons for this, the first of which is that it is a Community (not a church) school and it does not have the backing of a wide number of supporters, but secondly it now has a government secondary school next door which means that if children can get through all their primary school grades they do not have far to go to take their education to a higher level.
The charity makes no distinction between church schools and other schools - the criterion is how much help they need.

Teachers needed accommodation because many of them lived far from their schools and were worn out with many hours of travel and changes of buses. Single semi-detached flats were built and some teachers’ houses and this has helped morale a great deal. There are also two small flats where visitors may be accommodated.