Be a part of the solution. Help change the life of a child!

Expanding Horizons is a fundraising program developed by Rhonda and Melissa Barona as a result of their travels to Tanzania. While there, they had an opportunity to visit schools. Their school visits were eye openers that convinced them they needed to take action.

Rhonda described a visit to one school. "We entered a barren, dirt schoolyard where there were 4 small, dilapidated buildings that appeared to be abandoned. These were the classrooms that housed 300 students in kindergarten through 7th grade. That's 75 students crammed into one classroom with one teacher traveling between multiple rooms. Each classroom had a dirt floor, 3-4 children at each "desk" and bare, dingy walls with not so much as a blackboard. Each child had one workbook and a pencil. Otherwise, we saw no textbooks, notebooks, teacher's materials or any of the myriad of other educational supplies you'd expect to find in a school. In the middle of each room was a pile of sticks the students had picked up on their walk to school. Would you believe some students walk 5 miles one way every day! The sticks were used to build a fire to cook the lunch provided by the school, the only meal many of the students would have that day."

After completing additional research upon their return, they found education throughout the country is in dire need of help. Many children have either no school building or rundown, dilapidated buildings, little or no supplies, teacher/student ratios are extremely high and there is little support available from within.

Rhonda and Melissa returned home with a mission: to help build a classroom to be named after Rhonda's mother, Charlotte Elizabeth Fortran, a longtime educator, member of the National PTA and missions advocate. The classroom was completed and dedicated in 2018 at Kurusanga Primary, near Nyamuswa, Tanzania! Additionally, six students were sponsored at Kurusanga for five years.

Expanding Horizons is now committed to raising further funds to continue to sponsor students and provide education support through building and materials.

Join us in supporting real change. Let's support good in the world and make a difference. Help us put students and youth on the path to self-reliance for Project Zawadi.

Just a small donation will go a long way to helping meet our goal for Project Zawadi.