#73 An extraordinary contribution, Gemma Sisia, Founder, St. Jude’s School, Tanzania

DISCUSSED IN THIS EPISODE

• What caring in the workplace means for Gemma
• A journey of resilience, perseverance, and the power of purpose
• Invaluable insights on leadership, continuous improvement, and the role of grit in overcoming challenges
• Fostering a culture of respect, responsibility, honesty, and kindness

RESOURCES

Want to to reach out, share a great leader we should interview or learn more about The WeCARE Way, click here to contact us. 

Transcript from the interview

Disclaimer: The following transcript was generated using a specific tool. It serves as a convenient method for converting our podcasts into text and allows for easy text searches. However, we kindly ask for your understanding if any typos have inadvertently occurred as a result of the tool’s usage.

SPEAKERS

Graeme Cowan, Gemma Sisia

Graeme Cowan  0:02

Today’s guest is Gemma Sisia, who’s the founder and CEO of St Jude school in Tanzania, and she has a remarkable life story. Growing up on a large farm in country, New South Wales near Armidale, she had seven brothers, two parents and herself, and they were primarily the workforce for that very large farm. She learns lessons of resourcefulness, persistence and grit, as you need to do when you are on a farm. She has really embedded the culture of care and respect in the school, and talks about how that happens. She’s had some great ideas for seeking the input of valuable stakeholders, like parents, to have a continual improvement culture and mindset. It’s an amazing story, and I know you learn a lot. Enjoy!

Gemma Sisia  01:17

Hi, Graeme, thanks for having me,

Graeme Cowan  01:22

Gemma, what does care in the workplace mean to you?

Gemma Sisia  01:27

Well, given that we are a school, care is very important. And in actual fact, we have signs in various places in our school with our core values, because care for us, our core values is respect, responsibility, honesty and kindness. So in regards to caring, you show caring by being respectful, by being honest, by being responsible and so through our core values, if our staff, students, parents and our visitors and our supporters follow our four core values, which is respect, responsibility, honesty and kindness, then, yeah, it’s a caring environment.

Graeme Cowan  02:18

Yeah, I love how you integrate the values like that, and that’s what makes it really come alive. I think you know, when everyone honors those values and lives those values, it just creates a special culture. It really does, yes,

Gemma Sisia  02:30

so you’ll find you probably can’t even walk for 20 meters before you see a sign hanging up somewhere with our four core values. Because in the end, you could be first in physics or accounting class, but you’re not a nice person or a nice student. So those core values, we actually evaluate our students. So on the school report, you have the academic side, and you know, the extracurricular assessments, but there’s also a core values assessment.

Graeme Cowan  02:58

You have an amazing story, and I think our listeners would be very interested now. And as I understand, you grew up in a very large farm in country, New South Wales. You had seven brothers and parents that really instilled a work ethic with you, and you’ve now founded this extraordinary school, which by just giving our listeners a little bit of background about that journey. And I guess first of all, how you came to be in Tanzania, and what made you think, well, let’s do a school.

Gemma Sisia  03:33

So it really kind of started back in the late 80s, early 90s. So when I was at university. It was around 9293 I was studying science, and at the time, I was probably thinking about becoming a teacher, because, yes, I grew up on a farm, sheep, fine wool, Merino, with seven wonderful but very wild brothers. I think that taught me a lot of survival skills, pretty much from birth. But when I was at university, I was thinking about becoming a teacher, because I was probably going to marry a farmer’s wife, and a lot of farmers wives are casual teachers or nurses. So I thought about doing teaching. But anyway, I met a lady in Melbourne because I went to Melbourne University, and she told me she was looking for science teachers and maths teachers, and I’m Math Science High School. And so I said I’d help her. So I went across to East Africa. This is the mid 90s, and that’s where I started teaching. Now, to give you an idea of mid 90s, there was no internet. It was the peak of the lonely guide books, The Lonely Planet guide books, and the way I would communicate with my family was either by post or telegram. But then, in the last year that I was working in East Africa as a teacher, the fax machine came, and so I was able to go into the. Village post office, because they got a fax machine and I could fax my dad’s office in Armidale, and that’s how I was able to communicate. But anyway, growing up with seven brothers, we were very aware of what mum and dad did for our education. You know, my mum would buy herself a dress once in a blue moon, because school fees was very important, and to put eight kids through private schooling in Australia is not easy. Graeme, as you can imagine, especially if you’re farmers. Then, when I was in East Africa after finishing uni, it was the peak of the AIDS crisis. It was before the medicine came in. We’ve got wonderful medicine nowadays that’s completely free and very accessible here in Tanzania. But at those years, there was no medicine, and so a lot of the students were having to leave the school where I was working, not because they were passing away, but their parents were so maybe dad passes away. Mum couldn’t, mum wasn’t educated. Couldn’t raise the money for the school fees, so the child would have to leave the school. So me being my, you know, young self. And you know, when you’re young, you think you know everything, you’re infallible, but you’re actually having no idea what you’re talking about. Hey, who needs business plans? Nobody needs business plans. You know, just go for it. So I thought, wouldn’t it be great to build a good quality private school that didn’t charge school fees so parents like my parents wouldn’t have to struggle to find the school fees and children, if they lost their parents, they wouldn’t have to leave the school. And so that, that was where I got the idea of building the School. St Jude, now, even today, now we’re 20 years on, 20 years later. Even today, around four of our students lose a parent every month. Wow. About four of our kids as a parent every month, but they never have to leave the school because 100% of our students are on full scholarships. So anyway, so I went back to Australia after working for a few years, and here in Africa, went back to Australia and told them my brothers and my mom and dad that I’m going to build a free private school in Africa. And you can imagine how that went down. But one of my good friends in Armidale, her name is Agnes. We grew up together, she gave me my first donation. And thankfully, she never asked me for a business plan or anything like that. And she just goes said, go for a gem. So my first donation from Agnes was $10 so I took it to the Commonwealth Bank, which in those days was in the mall in Armidale, and opened a bank account. And then I started talking at schools and clubs and basically anyone who would be willing to speak with or hear me. And then we raised enough money to build the first classrooms of the school, with the help of rotary rotary in Armidale actually helped me to build my first classrooms. And then I opened the school in 2002 with three students, huge, a huge number of enrollment. And so we went from three students in my first day of opening, we just didn’t give up, and we’ve been fundraising ever since and enrolling new students. So today we’ve gone from three students to three schools. So we’ve got one primary school, two secondary schools. The secondary schools are both boarding, so we’d have around probably 1500 students in boarding, and then we have about 330 Tanzanian staff. And then we also have a tertiary program, so we support around 400 students across 10 countries with their university. So that’s a bit of a background, yeah.

Graeme Cowan  08:43

You know, the scale is extraordinary now. And, you know, I guess you just did have to, you know, build one student at a time, one teacher this time, one building at a time, exactly. And, you know, getting support. You know, I My father was a Rotarian. I know they do lots of great things around the world. And, you know, my father’s club did a lot of work in New Guinea, you know, building a school up there. So, you know, it is wonderful that they, you know, can help almost like Seed Fund, isn’t it getting getting things off the ground, off the ground, the size and the scope of the school. Now, you know, is extraordinary. So what would be your operating budget each year? Now,

Gemma Sisia  09:32

we’re a little bit less than 8 million US

Graeme Cowan  09:35

this year. Wow. So we’re talking 12, 12 million Australians, somewhere in that vicinity,

Gemma Sisia  09:40

and over, you’ll be very proud to know that around 92% of our income so we are 100% donor funded. 100% of our students are on full scholarships, and 330 10s and in families, and you can imagine all the suppliers for that budget. All the families that you know in suppliers in town, the hardware and transport our busses. We’ve got over 30 busses with 1500 kids in boarding. You can imagine how much they eat and in secondary, especially those boys. And so our food budget is huge. So you can imagine the amount of farmers that rely on our annual budget. Anyway, 92% comes from Australians. 92% very proud, very humbled.

Graeme Cowan  10:28

That’s very, very, you know, wonderful, wonderful new you mentioned before about, you know, having your signs of your values around the school. How do you also, I guess, build that sense of purpose with, first of all, the teachers and the staff and and also the students. How do you, you know, embed that on a daily basis?

Gemma Sisia  10:55

So I have the most wonderful management team behind me, which I’ve been able to build over many, over the many, many years. I have a management team of 10 people behind me, so whilst I’m speaking with you, actually the pressure is behind me. So I’ve got a wonderful finance manager. Then I have a manager overseeing all the schools the academic side. Then I have another manager overseeing all the tertiary and the gap year, and another one who’s fundraising, another one who’s doing HR, another one who’s dealing with our parents, because over 90% of our parents, of our students, don’t have a secondary education. So there’s that whole welfare and health, because to get a scholarship, the family also has to be very poor. So how do so in regards to staff, our staff have KPIs. They’re on contracts. We have to abide by labor laws, so we have disciplinary hearings. There is child protection rules in the school. We operate on a very professional basis, so if a staff member doesn’t do their duty or work well, or hit their KPIs. They give them warnings, but eventually they we won’t renew their contract. Yeah, with our students, because 100% of them are on full scholarships from the day that they arrive at the school, and every year afterwards, the student and their guardian sign an agreement of expectations, and that agreement is signed every year. So because Graeme, if you’re not willing to appreciate one of my first sponsors, Graeme was one of my mates from boarding school. She was from coupamundra, not and she sponsored one of my first students, not because she actually thought that the school was going to get off the ground, but she was young like myself and wanted to just help me out, but she worked really hard to raise the money for her sponsorship of a student here. So in return, I want the student here who gets that scholarship to appreciate the gift that they have been given. And so we have a contract, basically with with each student and their family of behavior, of academic, of all types of, you know, behavior, with the students that we expect in return for that scholarship. So that’s how we manage and work on the standards of our school. So whilst we are a school based here in the third world, we like to operate it very professionally, and we expect our students to appreciate their scholarships so that they can perform and achieve the goals that they want to so to give you some stats, I think it’s 97% of our year 12 going to university, wow, and and so they are really making impact now here on the ground, which is wonderful.

Graeme Cowan  13:56

You shared just before we started that you had a broken arm and had to go to hospital. Do you mind just sharing that for our listeners? Please?

Gemma Sisia  14:08

Yep. So long story, not a really long story, but about 10 years ago, one of our donors from Melbourne visited the school, and he gave me this little green ceramic turtle, a very random gift. Now, I’ve become a bit of a turtle lover, but at that time, I didn’t really, you know, it was a bit of a random gift. Anyway, he said to me, his name’s Andrew. He said, Gemma, I’m giving you this turtle because when turtles have babies, you don’t see them like the babies scurry down to the ocean and nobody sees them for a number of years, and that’s when they’re just trying to avoid being eaten. They’re living in the reeds. They’re just trying to avoid the predators. But after a number of years, they turn up on the beach and they they, you know, continue the cycle. And he said, you wait once your students finish their degree or their, you know, their trade, or whatever they’re going to do. You’re also not going to see them for a number of years. Don’t get despondent, but after a few years, maybe 10 years or so, you’ll start seeing them pop up as CEOs, as business leaders. And so our first year group finished university, or started to come out of university in 2019 so our first year 12 group had 60 kids in it. Thankfully, there were more than three of them. By the time they got to year 12, there were 60 of them. Most of the group did three year courses like business, marketing, education. Then some of them did engineering. They came out in 2020 and then 10 of the 60 came out as doctors in 2021, but basically they all started coming out of use at university around 19, 22,019. 2020 so I’m thinking of Andrew’s turtle analogy. I’ve just got to keep the faith till probably about 2030 because our kids, once they finish university, they just trying to get a job, trying to find money to put me three meals on the plate a day, trying to find money for rent. So I’ve just got to keep the dream and keep the grind Graeme until about 2030 and hopefully by 2030 I will have discovered whether this whole thing has been a waste of time or been worth it, but just in the last year or so, all of a sudden, I’m starting to run into turtles on a professional basis. Now we’re getting back to my broken arm. So just to give you some, you know, some turtle stories, they’re already coming back to the beach, and we’re much, much earlier than I had expected. So, for example, my mother in law had issues breathing. She has she’s an asthmatic, and so my husband and I had to rush her to a hospital in town and and who’s the doctor in emergency? It’s one of my turtles from that inaugural year 12 glass who’s a doctor. And I totally forget that my mother in law can’t breathe. I’m just all emotional seeing one of my turtles as the doctor, and I can still remember her. She took my handbag and took my mother in law’s handbag and said, right, come with me, you know, anyway, and then anyway, a few months ago, sadly, well, not sadly, a few, a few months ago, my youngest daughter was playing the piano and had a seizure. Well, terrified us, as you can imagine. So we take her to the hospital in town, and the doctor says, right, she needs an MRI. And then I think it’s called an EEG or something. And so you need to take her to Kilimanjaro. That’s a big hospital at Kilimanjaro, it’s about an hour and a half from here, because they have those machines. So we drive all the way to Kilimanjaro, to the hospital and go into the MRI department, and who’s one of the technicians, she comes up to me and goes, Oh, mama Gemma, and it was one of my turtles, and it was nice. Anyway, it was lovely. But talking about the broken arm. So this year, so, as I told you before our first year 12, class was 60 students. This year we graduated over 200 from year 12, because we have two secondary schools, and whilst there were 200 graduating from year 12, they actually as a group beat every other year 12 group in the history of st Jude’s academically wise. So the academic performance was off the charts. And so I said to my manager, who oversees all the heads of schools, what can we do to I asked him, you know, I said, Mr. McHarg, what can we do? His name’s Charo. What can we do? Mr. McHarg, to celebrate this huge record. Because not only is it a huge group, but it’s and it’s not about the students themselves and their teachers, but it’s about the primary staff who put them through primaries, the boarding staff who look after them every night. It’s the cooks who feed for them three times, who feed them three times a day. It’s all the fundraising staff who raise the money. It’s the IT staff who somehow, even though we’re in a third world country, keep us online so we can fundraise and we can actually communicate with the outside world. It’s a huge team effort. What can we do? So he says, gem, there’s nothing more culturally appropriate than getting the two biggest bulls at the local Maasai market, and we have a huge barbecue and a huge because none of our students or staff are vegetarian. Um, you’re pretty hard off to find a Tanzania who’s a vegetarian. So meat is a luxury here Graeme, so we only give meat to our students a couple of times a month, because it’s so expensive. And so to have a huge meat allocation to each student, especially to those boy boarders, there’s nothing better than food. So I said, Okay, so Isent an email to our procurement department. I. And I CCed Mr. Mcharra, so he knew that I communicated his wishes. So I wrote to the procurement team, and I said, Please buy the two biggest bulls that you can get at the market this week and deliver it to our secondary school. We’re going to surprise the school and the headmaster and the current year twelves. So procurement do what they’re told to do, and so they deliver these huge, big balls over to the school. Now I come from a farm, and I grew up with sheep and cattle. Now at the time, my head of marketing was pregnant with twins, so she was not there, and the my manager, who oversees the entire fundraising division, was also not there. So I understand in person who has to record this momentous record occasion. So I have the two bulls in the paddock. I have the headmaster and the leadership team behind the two bulls. And I have, like 200 also current year, 12 students who are hoping that they can break the record, and maybe next year we get three balls for them. I don’t know, anyway, so I’m standing by myself about, probably, I don’t know, 1520, meters from the two bulls, and I’m taking a picture, and I’m just choreographing, saying I’m Mr. Chau. Can you just move to the right, you know, so I can see, well, one of the bulls looks at me, and within half a second, we locked eyes, and I knew I was in trouble. So the ball chases me, catches I try to run, which my brother told me I was an idiot. I was supposed to stand still and do the Spanish thing and wait for the ball to come within a meter of me, then step to the side at the last minute. But of course, I was never trained to do that. You know, my brothers were in the bull riding business, but I wasn’t, you know, when I was younger anyway. So the ball catches up to me, throws me into the air. When I come down, I must use my arm to cushion the landing, and I smash my arm. And so I’m taken to the local hospital, and the doctor says, right straight into radiology, because we, even though we can’t see any visual punctures from the horns, there could still be internal bleeding. And we also get to get your X rays, because, you know, there could be more things broken or cracked or whatever. So they roll me into radiology. And then who’s the radiologist? One of my turtles. Well, I just feel like, and he looked after me like I was the Queen of Sheba and and I actually started crying. I’m going to start crying again now. Sorry, yeah, I

Graeme Cowan  22:44

love the turtle stories. Honestly, you went over there and you self confessed. Were very naive and optimistic and hopeful, but I suspect that you got lots of just a few anecdotes I’ve heard about it sounds like you had a couple of really amazing parents, and I was wondering about what were the leadership lessons you learned from them?

Gemma Sisia  23:11

Okay, so absolutely, I think the only reason why I have survived because I have seen countless NGOs come and go over the last 20 odd years. So I think I’ve been blessed because of my childhood. So growing up on the farm, we had to work on the weekends, in the evenings, and it was just the thing. I didn’t know it was different. It was just that was what life was like. And so even though I was the only daughter, don’t think that I was given any special privileges. So I can tell you, Graeme, I can shew a horse, shear a sheep, brand cattle, and drench sheep. You know, I can do all of that muster. So I was expected, and I actually wanted to keep up with the boys. My mum used to always say, Gemma, can’t you stay with me in the house, you know, and help her cook the meals and and play with my dolls and do dress ups. But I just wanted to be out with the boys on the motorbikes and the horses and that sort of thing with my dad so and growing up on the farm so far from town, I never, ever saw a tradesman on the property. Dad did everything, and so we all had to sort of become tradesmen, you know, jack of all trades. And especially I grew up with the don’t give up grit that farmers have. And unbeknownst to me, I didn’t realize that tenacity is the most important human trait you need to survive with building some sort of project here in Africa, tenacity, tenacity, and, of course, common sense, anyone with the you know, with common sense is also really welcomed here and much needed, but so hard work. Work. And then every Sunday, it didn’t matter whether we were in holidays or visiting people. Mum and Dad were always able to find a church, even if, even if, even if we’d been, you know, out, you know, in the middle of the night, doing something or mustering till 2am or doing cattle work or shearing whatever to 2am or packing wool packs. Next morning, dad would get us all up, and mum would get us all up, and we’d all have to chase to church. So I think, and even though we were farmers, mum and dad actually met at Melbourne Uni. So Mum was a physio and dad was a lawyer, and Dad always kept his hours up by going to seminars, and he we saw him giving so many farmers advice countless times. There’d be a farmer out on our veranda, and dad’s giving him advice or and we also saw a lot of people with various maybe mental health issues, and they would be also staying at the house. We just grew up with it, thinking it was normal. So I saw my parents being very compassionate, helping people out, using the skills that they had to help people. They were on countless clubs and service groups and whatever and and so service God and hard work, yes, drilled into us whether we wanted or not.

Graeme Cowan  26:29

But, you know, real counts for a lot, for a lot. Funnily enough, I grew up in a country town, Tari, and my dad had a accounting practice, yeah. And

Gemma Sisia  26:39

I love Tari. It’s one of my favorite towns. Oh, really, I’m actually, yes, if I was to retire, I reckon Tari would be one of my you know, I just think it’s wonderful.

Graeme Cowan  26:48

Yeah, place there on the river. Oh my gosh, yes, right beside the river. But gab is an accountant. Had an accounting practice, but he always used to like to hire people from farms, which doesn’t sound relevant for for accounting, but, of course, I you know accounting background, but he loved that part of them, because he said, they just sort stuff out. Something happens, they work it out. And it’s, you know, like you said about your farm, things happen all the time. You just have to deal with it and make it happen. And it is, you know that determination goes a very, very long way, doesn’t it?

Gemma Sisia  27:23

Yes? Because every day, curve balls happen here, and you just got to work through them. And my management team know to come with me with the solution. Okay, we got this problem, but we’re proposing this. If they can’t think of a solution, we’ll bring a few other managers in we’ll try the solution. If it works, somebody has to process write it, because I’ll be not very happy if we if someone else comes across with that issue and they come to me again, so everyone doesn’t like me, because I’m always into procedures and policies and everything like that. But, but if it doesn’t work, we think of another strategy. We just keep trying ideas until a solution comes part, but it’s yeah, you just gotta keep knocking at it, because, yeah, life is very hard here. People think working in the third world is romantic and glorious. It’s not. It is hard work. You miss your family back home. It’s, you know, so you’ve got you you’ve gotta really love what you do to be able to survive here, and you’ve got to, like I said, you know, have that grit and don’t give up attitude and a sense of Hum, I think helps. Yeah,

Graeme Cowan  28:28

yeah. You gotta be able to laugh and cheer, you really do. And when things get a bit tough, honestly, starting from three students to now, having the organization that you’ve built, along with your management team is a very, very different issues and problems and challenges. How did you develop the skills to really adapt and to grow? Was that, you know, you had obviously a great start with your parents, but have you had mentors in terms of leadership and strategy and financial management?

Gemma Sisia  29:09

Um, yeah. So I think I’ve been able to adapt, and I’m still learning, because I get told to pull my head in, sometimes I get wrapped over the, you know, the knuckles. A few times I’ve got very tough board members. So I actually have five boards here, Graeme at the school, and they’re no joke. So we have, because over 90% of our money comes from Australia. We have a very tough Australian charity board who are very active and and they really are good at guiding myself and telling me what I’m doing wrong, or telling me to pull my head in sometimes. And I have about 5% or bit more now it’s increasing, which is great from the States and we have. Similar charity board in the States, and then the rest of the money comes from we’ve now got, actually, now we’ve got Tanzanian sponsors, our own students. I’ve got one of our alumni, one of my turtles is coming in today, actually, who wants to sponsor a student? So now we’ve got, yep, so now we’ve got Tanzanian donors and sponsors we’ve got, I think it’s about 150 turtles donate every month now to st Jude’s, even though they’ve only really barely finished university. Wow, our eldest ones. And then a bit from Canada, New Zealand and UK. And then here at the school, like schools in Australia, each of our schools has its own board, yeah. And as you know, school boards in Australia are not easy, and so the same goes for here. And so I think good governance and has been critical for me over the years, it’s been very difficult at times. You know, having to go through these hard lessons, but I have an attitude where a hard lesson is actually been the best thing ever. I now believe, and I tell my management team, when you go through something tough, you actually just get through it. You know, this time will pass. That’s my favorite saying, This time will pass. Just get through it. Even just try and get to lunch time and then start another goal till 5pm get through it and eventually, guarantee you look back and say, I’m thankful for that experience because I’m a better person, or I’ve now got a different procedure, or, you know, my I’ve tried, I’ve changed my personality a bit, and so anyway, and my leadership team, you know, pick me up sometimes and tell me, you know, to that I’m going in the wrong direction. So that’s also helpful. So definitely not myself. It’s just Yeah, with the help from others around me, and then, oh my gosh, my secret weapon. I haven’t even told you about my secret weapon. My secret weapon is my parent leadership team here. I don’t, I don’t think there is another school in the world that has a parent leadership team like I have here. It’s a 50 strong parents and so Graeme, where are you currently based in

Graeme Cowan  32:24

Sydney? Okay, tell me which suburb, Gordon on the North Shore.

Gemma Sisia  32:29

Okay, so to give you an analogy, all the families who come to St Jude’s from Gordon vote for their Gordon representative, parent representative to be to sit on the parent leadership team. All the families from coddie Vote for their could you Representative all the people from all the families from Bondi, all the families from Newcastle, but because we now cover four regions, we’ve got a parent representative from Maury, we’ve got a parent representative from young we’ve got a parent representative from Aubrey, because we cover such a huge part of Tanzania now. And so to get on that parent representative, you have to be very active. And if you don’t, if you’re not proactive for your parents in your area, you’re basically kicked off, you know, yeah, exactly so our current pair of representative leaders are about 50 strong, and they give me so when I started st Jude’s, my father, my my dear dad said to me, you know, Jim, you’ve got to make sure you’re always getting complaints or constructive criticism about what you’re doing, because if you’re not getting constructive criticism, criticism from your customers, then you’ve got your head in the sand. Because no business can run 100% well and perfectly. So when I started St Jude with the whole three kids, and asked the parents, you know, what do you think the education is like? Is there anything I can do to improve? And they’d go, I know, everything’s great, Gemma. Oh my gosh. It’s such a good education for my child. And I thought, Aha, you’re only telling me that because you’re worried that if you tell me the truth, I’ll pull your child’s scholarship. So in my first year of operation, I asked five of my parents to form a parent committee, and their only job was to give me a list of things that I have to improve on, once a month, a list of complaints from parents. And I don’t want the, I don’t want the identification of the parent who was complaining to be put on the list. I just want the the complaints. Well, boom, did it work? Very humbling. And that list comes in up to today, Graeme and up to today. And I tell you what it is, better than any audit from Price Waterhouse or Ernest young. It is incredible, because in the end, my our parents just want the best education for their children, but they live all over the place so they can see what’s happening, they hear what’s happening, and. I tell you, 98% of what is written on that complaints list is true. So it’s my it’s that. But over the last 20 odd years, that parent leadership team has grown in responsibilities. So for example, the parent leader of Gordon has to roster a parent to be at the bus stop every Monday morning and another parent to be on the bus stop on Monday afternoon, another parent to be at the Gordon bus stop on Tuesday morning, another one on Tuesday afternoon. And this is happening all over all these regions, and to make sure that our kids get on the bus and off the bus, because sometimes you know, it’s unsafe, and because we’ve got some albino kids, for example, in our school. But also there’s just some weirdos, as you know, and and then they help with student selection, because we’re a scholarship school, everybody. So give me the name of a nice private school where you are.

Graeme Cowan  35:58

One very close is Ravenswood. At ravens

Gemma Sisia  36:01

that is a very nice school. So imagine if ravens would was free. How many people would apply to go to it, especially if it was boarding, yeah, people from Tari, people from Armida, would apply to Ravenswood if it was free. Exactly. So we have that problem. We are a private school. We do very well academically. We’ve got students on national sporting teams. Last year we hosted the national debating public speaking competition as well as the East African speaking public debating competition. So everybody wants to come. So for example, we had 240 positions available at the beginning of secondary school this year, we had over 5000 kids apply and and so our parent leaders also help with that, because we have to do poverty checking. So let’s, let’s give you an example. Let’s say little Graeme. You want to apply for a secondary scholarship, you have to, first of all, come from a government primary school, if you’re coming from a private or private primary government school, you’re not eligible for a secondary scholarship. The next thing, you have to come and do a series of entrance exams, and that is based on the primary national Tanzanian curriculum. If you pass those, then we have to make sure that you are age appropriate, so you’re not 21 pretending that you’re only in grade seven type age. If you are age appropriate, then we will come to your home. So I will come with a couple of staff, and we will visit your home. Even if you’re living Mount Isa, we will come to your home and we will visit you and your family. I will and my staff will take photographs. It’s like a four page document of all the questions we’ve got to ask on the ask and the types of photos and documentary evidence we’ve got to take while we’re visiting your home. But unbeknownst to you, one of my parent committee people are outside talking to the neighbors, talking to the local shopkeeper, you know, talking to the kids who are cutting water or pushing goats around. And anyway, so there’s lots of things that my secret weapon, my parent leaders, do for me.

Graeme Cowan  38:07

It’s an amazing, you know, the the Japanese return for it, Kaizen, you know, continual improvement. And it is giving everyone the chance to change things, and to have really, important to stakeholders like parents, who have a very, very high incentive, and I’m sure they’re very constructive about it, and I would suspect when they see you respond so often, they’re also fair, and know that you can’t change everything. Can’t fix everything.

Gemma Sisia  38:37

And especially what I’m so proud of is these parent committee members, the 50 odd parent reps, you would think that they are a staff member. They work so hard, completely voluntarily, completely voluntary. They do all of these extra tasks. They’ve got about 10 tasks, but I’d have to spend two weeks explaining to you what they do, and I know we don’t have two weeks, how

Graeme Cowan  38:58

you have lots on the go, and I know you’re married, you got four kids. How do you recharge your batteries? How do you keep your own fuel in your own tank?

Gemma Sisia  39:10

So I’m a homebody, so as soon as so last night is a very typical night. So I get home, kiss my husband, Hi, I’m back, and I go straight to the kitchen, and I start cooking dinner. So cooking, I love cooking, and I just, and I think that comes from my own mother, not that when I was young, I wanted to be like my mom, like all young women, but my mum was a real home maker. So she would, you know, sew our clothes. She would knit sweaters for us. We’d always have like a soup and then a main meal and some sort of dessert, jelly or something that she’d made for us. If we were sick, we’d always get mashed banana or ice cream or jelly or something. And the ultimate homemaker. And so I, for me, I, you know, subcon. Justly, or, I don’t know, I just figure that’s what a good mum has to be. So I love cooking and I love gardening. So I’m an avid gardener, and I so I take it out on the dirt, I think in the flowers, maybe

Graeme Cowan  40:15

I’m a clean gardener as well. And there’s something about being outside and seeing things grow and exactly, and seeing it come back stronger than it was before it’s it’s very, very rewarding, very fulfilling.

Gemma Sisia  40:29

And I like walking too. Graeme, sorry, so in the mornings I walk. So I’ve got, we’ve got three labs and one, yeah. And so I walk for a couple of hours in the morning, and that just, I know, empties my head. And I listen to podcasts. Actually, I’m a huge podcast fan, mainly true crime, just to be upfront, by the time I’ve got down to the next village I’ve already that’s who has murdered so and so. Anyway,

Graeme Cowan  41:04

Is there a book or a movie or a piece of art which has really had a big impact on you?

Gemma Sisia  41:12

Oh, not really. Well, maybe the tipping point was a book that I got out of, a lot out of, especially around that continuous improvement model, the tipping point that would be one. And

Graeme Cowan  41:32

I would say the turtle, your turtle’s had a big impact on you in terms of Yes, yes, understanding the life cycle that goes on. And I really love that perspective. You got to be patient, you know, to see the fruits, because they do go away. They do they’re very busy, but it’s nice when they start coming back. And to have 100 students, you know, donating regularly back to the school must be very, very rewarding, yes,

Gemma Sisia  41:59

and it’s just the start. Because, you know, the doctors, for example, from our first inaugural graduating class have have only been in hospitals for two years. Yeah, imagine what’s going to what’s the impact going to be in 10 years when they start becoming leaders in their hospitals, or in 20 years? And so if we’ve got 150 kids already donating. And like I said, we’ve got alumni who are now sponsoring little ones. Sadly, that 92% that Australia is giving, I think will move towards Tanzania is giving, you know, a much larger, much, a much larger proportion. But I’m excited to see what happens. And yeah, I just find even we were in a meeting yesterday, and the boss of my school is Mr. McHarg, the one who told me to buy the bulls. By the way, I told him next year, if we break another record, I’m just buying hundreds and hundreds of chickens anyway. But yesterday, Mr. And Shahara said he was at restaurant in town. It’s like a club where you can have barbecue meat and, you know, nice meals. It’s like a nice pub in Armidale where you can get, you can take the family, but get good meal, but you can also buy a beer, that sort of place. Well, a couple of our turtles walk up behind him and pay his entire meal in all of his drinks. Wow, isn’t that beautiful?

Graeme Cowan  43:24

It is. It’s really, really stunning. So how do people go about sponsoring a child or making a donation to st Jude’s school?

Gemma Sisia  43:33

So I called the school, by the way, st Jude’s, because St Jude is the pension saint of the hopeless cases. So when I was trying to start a school with $10 having never built anything in my life, you know, other than, you know, a guinea pigs cage, actually, when I was in year nine, that was the only thing I never built. So I thought, well, calling the school after the Saint of the hopeless, that’s why I called the school St, Jude. And so if someone wants to help, they just have to type st, Jude into Google. St, Jude school Tanzania, and they’ll find our website, but it’s actually School of St. Jude.org is our website, and up there it’s how to support us, and it says, sponsor a student or make a donation. And so we try and make it very easy, because this year, for example, we enrolled around 250 students between primary and secondary, and so we need those kids to have sponsors of their scholarships. And yeah, I’d love someone to come, come and join the journey. And then it would be wonderful. This year we have around 200 students again graduating year 12, and we’re expecting around 60 or 70 sponsors to make the journey to Tanzania for that graduation. It’s all it’s always wonderful to see. Yeah, we have a huge Visitor Program. We actually have around 70 rooms for visiting sponsors and donors, or, yeah, all Rotarian. So if you’re a Rotarian, you can get a room for free. Yeah? Excellent, like a sponsor and a donor. So we have a whole visitor department that looks after our visitors that stay on campus, because we are very transparent, and we want people to see with their own eyes how we’re using the donations and sponsorships here on the ground. Plus they can go on safari. We just happen to be in the best Safari part of the entire world. So you’ve got the Serengeti elephants, you know, lots of lions and leopards and cheetahs all within a few hours drive.

Graeme Cowan  45:30

Amazing. I always finish by asking the same question, and that is, knowing what you know now. What advice would you give your 18 year old self to I guess maybe enjoy the ride a bit more.

Gemma Sisia  45:50

Definitely, I would have married my husband earlier. That means I wish I had married him earlier. We could have had a few more children by then, but we’ve got four, but I would have loved to have had more children. And my other advice is open boarding earlier. I didn’t when I opened st Jude’s, it was a day school and but parents were putting a lot of pressure on me, my parent committee putting a lot of pressure on me to open boarding because a lot of our kids live in not so safe environments. But I at the time, I was thinking, oh my gosh, boarding is so 24/7 I was a boarder myself, so I was very aware of the work involved. So I said, No, no, no. But then, after about seven years, we opened boarding. In hindsight, I wish we’d open boarding when that parent committee who, in the end, know best, told me to open boarding, that’s, that’s really my only other big regret in regards to the school. Yeah,

Graeme Cowan  46:50

Well, that’s not too much to regret. You know, you’ve, you know, continue to build and grow and and evolve and, yeah, really fantastic. Thank you so much for being part of the caring CEO Gemma, and I really wish yourself your family and your school all the best in 2025 and onwards from there.

Oh, you are inquisitive… getting all the way to the bottom of the page!

Thanks for listening 🙂

From all of us at The Caring CEO, and the WeCARE team, keep listening, keep caring and lead with your heart.

P.S. If you want to reach out, share a great leader we should interview or learn more about The WeCARE Way, click here to contact us.