User:Mwalimuwakwanza/sandbox

{{AFC submission|d|bio|u=Mwalimuwakwanza|ns=2|decliner=Bonadea|declinets=20250107140415|reason2=v|ts=20250107135717}}

Mwalimu Joel Sengasu MDUNDO was born in 1917 in a village in SAME district, Kilimanjaro region of Tanzania, a country in East Africa. Gonja is located in the region of Kilimanjaro. As the crow flies, the distance to the regional capital of Kilimanjaro, Moshi (Moshi), is approximately 129.3 km (80.3 mi). The distance from Gonja to the capital of Tanzania, Dodoma (Dodoma), is approximately 332.2 km (206.4 mi) as the crow flies{{Cite web |title=Gonja in Tanzania {{!}} Facts and Information about Gonja - Places-in-the-World.com |url=https://places-in-the-world.com/tanzania/gonja/159789 |access-date=2025-01-07 |website=places-in-the-world.com}}{{Cite web |title=Gonja in Tanzania {{!}} Facts and Information about Gonja - Places-in-the-World.com |url=https://places-in-the-world.com/tanzania/gonja/159789#google_vignette |access-date=2025-01-07 |website=places-in-the-world.com}}. He was a PARE,'mpare'; The Pare (pronounced "Pahray") people are members of an indigenous ethnic group which habits the Pare Mountains of northern Tanzania, Mwanga and Same districts, Manyara, Tanga and, Kilimanjaro Region. They speak a language called Asu. It is also known by alternative names - Ashu, Athu, Casu, Chasu, Chiasu, Kiathu, Kipare, Pare, Pare-Asu. The Asu language has two dialects – Gonja and Mbaga. Pareland is also known as Vuasu. The location lies on one of the northern routes for historic east-African long-distance trade, connecting the hinterland with the coast of the Indian Ocean. The residents of northern Pare recognise two sub-areas based on ethno-linguistic differences: Gweno-speaking Ugweno to the north and Chasu-speaking Usangi to the south.{{Cite web |last=OISEBE |first=ANNASTASI |date=April 2009 |title=A COLLECTION OF 100 PARE (TANZANIA) PROVERBS AND WISE SAYINGS African Proverbs Working Group |url=https://afriprov.tangaza.ac.ke/wp-content/ |access-date=2025-01-07 |website=afriprov.tangaza.ac.ke}}

Mwalimu Joel received his Grade C teaching certificate in 1937.It is said that he walked many kilometers to the college including a 6km stretch of over an animal reserve (see attached certificate). In 1972, he received a Grade A teachers certificate (see attached certificate).

Mwalimu Joel was the first teacher to open and start the first primary school in the Maore area of Gonja, in Same. He was a passionate teacher who believed that all every child must be educated, irrespective of gender, at a time when mostly boys where being sent to further education and most girls only received basic elementary education and then expected to get married. Mwalimu Joel was blessed with a total of 24 children born over 4 decades, from 3 wives and with many grand and great grand children. Sadly, he died of kidney related complications secondary to Type 2 Diabetes on the 15th of July, 1986,(Aged 69) at the Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Centre, a large hospital in Moshi, Tanzania that was opened in March 1971 by the Good Samaritan Foundation{{Cite web |title=KCMUCo |url=https://kcmuco.ac.tz/ |archive-url=http://web.archive.org/web/20241213195301/https://kcmuco.ac.tz/ |archive-date=2024-12-13 |access-date=2025-01-07 |website=kcmuco.ac.tz |language=en-US}} https://kcmuco.ac.tz/. In 2025 the living children ages range from 45-80 years, grandchildren from 10-5 years.

Mwalimu Joel is an unforeseen hero and deserves to be known forever. In the 1950s, many children who grew up in the Gonja area sang a song about his ' tidiness and strictness', the myth was that he was a 'black white man', "Murungu-Mjiru". This page is created to keep his legacy alive so that future generations will know him and how his impact changed many lives.