For twelve years we have taught English to children from Fuoni in rented rooms – and closed whenever the rent couldn't be paid. Now the foundation of our own building is in the ground. Help us put a roof on it.
It started with a handful of orphans from one street.
In 2014, when Modest turned 18, he wanted to give back. He had been lucky: a private school, university, a job as a tour guide – and fluent English. The children on his street in Fuoni had none of that. So he started teaching them English in the evenings.
Fast forward twelve years: Straight Training Center (formerly Straight Line) now teaches more than 200 students, most of them orphans or from families who struggle to get by. All seven teachers are former students. Besides the evening English class we offer computer classes and a weekend literacy class for parents who never learned to read and write.
Through debates, role plays, theatre and games our students practise English – and find a safe place where they belong, have role models and have fun. Many dream of becoming tour guides like Modest, a real way into work on an island that lives from tourism.
ModestWhen Modest turned 18, he founded the school.
From one street to our own building
2014
A handful of kids, one street
Modest, 18, starts teaching English to orphans from his street. No classroom, no budget – just the belief that education changes lives.
2015–2019
The students become the teachers
Night after night, after his own work as a tour guide. By 2019, seven former students teach alongside him.
We asked our students this question in 2022. They wrote their answers with a pen on a laptop – here are all twelve, in their own words. Hover over a page (or tap it) to watch it being written again.
“Straight line is not only a Centre but is the home of every one who want to Success. Because even we don’t have enough money to pay but we steal learn English without any problems.”
Khayman, 15
“Straight line help me to learning English even I don’t have a money but teachers of straight line have kind heart to help me. … all student in straight line are not only friend but also family.”
Zaujat, 15
“Straight line is like my friend because it help me in happiness and sadness.”
Ilham, 12
“I like straight line because the student who are orphanage are not pay. I am in straight line because I want to remove ignorance.”
Said, 14
“Good teacher: modest is good teacher because give me hope every day.”
Maryam, 13
“My advice if you don’t know how to speak English come in our centre you will know how to speak English.”
Khairat, 11
“First and feremost I was don’t know anything about English language … And also my teachers to supporting me and giving me motivation in case of learning english language.”
Rahma, 14
“When we finish to learn teacher Ahmed give us verb in order to put in our mind. That is the thing make us to learn hard.”
Abdillah, 13
“Straight line may help me to achieve my dream to become a teacher of English language.”
Ali, 19
“I come straight line to learn and to do revision because I want to know English and I come to get education.”
Mahir, 9
“Respest and Good manners according to experience teacher Modest … my dreams to learning english.”
Zahra, 16
“It’s the same in tuition if you don’t understand at school you go to understand at tuition.”
Mulhim, 14
Straight Line was our name until 2022. Names shortened to first names; ages as of 2022.
Why our own building
Rent has been our biggest problem for twelve years.
Modest pays the rent from his income as a tour guide. In the low season that income drops – and more than once the school had to close for a month or longer. Since our registration in 2022, taxes have added 60 % to our monthly costs. Our own building solves this for good.
No more rent
Every shilling that went to a landlord can go into teaching. The school becomes financially sustainable.
No more closures
In Zanzibar, tenants are poorly protected – landlords can take a building back at short notice. Our own walls mean classes never stop again.
Room to grow
Seven classrooms, a computer room, an office and an assembly hall – instead of children sitting on mats in a few rented rooms.
A home for volunteers
Volunteer rooms upstairs let teachers from abroad live at the school and teach – and build lasting friendships.
The building
Built in phases – every phase is a usable step.
After phase 1 the government allows us to teach on our own plot. Each further phase adds rooms. We buy all materials ourselves and bargain every price; Modest and his father, an engineer, supervise the construction.
Explore the building
Phase0
Permits & preparation
Land transfer, building plans, contractor engineer – and the building permit, granted on 22 September 2026.
We are allowed to build.
Phase1a
Outer wall, gate & foundation
A wall around the plot, a temporary gate – and, earlier than first planned, the reinforced foundation for all ground-floor rooms with deep pillars for the roof.
The groundwork is done: the building can rise.
Phase1b
The roof
Concrete pillars and one large iron-sheet roof over the whole building. This is an El Niño year, and especially heavy rains are forecast for November – the roof has to be up before then.
The site is protected before the heavy rains.
Phase1c
Classrooms 1–3, office, toilets, water & power
The minimum the government requires to run a school on the site – plus the well, sewage tank and electricity. The power company only connects plots once rooms stand, and drilling the well needs power, so these come now.
We move in. No more rent.
Phase2
Computer room, security room & stairs
Classroom 4 becomes the computer room; a guard sleeps on site. Its foundation is already in place.
Our 10 computers get a safe, permanent home.
Phase3
Upper floor: classrooms 5–7 & assembly hall
Three more classrooms and an open hall for debates, theatre and events.
Room for all 200+ students – and more.
Phase4
Volunteer rooms
A kitchen, two bedrooms and two bathrooms.
Volunteers can live at the school and teach.
Phase5
Garden
Trees and a green courtyard.
Shade and a place to play.
Costs per phase from our quotation, including a 20 % buffer for rising fuel and material prices. Building rarely goes exactly to plan: on the engineer's advice we laid the foundation for all rooms at once, and the wet ground needed far more rubble than expected, so the foundation cost more than budgeted. We update this page when the budget changes – every shilling is visible in the ledger.
Construction diary
From empty plot to finished foundation in ten weeks.
Modest sends us photos from the site every week. Here are some of them.
Our plot before construction.Day one: bricks and sand arrive.The outer wall begins to rise.The wall now encloses the plot.A temporary gate – the site can be locked. The permanent gate comes later.The ground here is soft and wet: groundwater fills the pits, so we pump it out before casting each pillar.Digging the foundation trenches.Rebar for the pillars and the first foundation blocks.The rooms take shape in the ground.Cement and gravel for the foundation.Three big trucks of rubble – “for a very good price”, Modest reports.Weekend: our students come to help – unpaid, all day.Every bucket counts before the rains come.A plate compactor flattens the ground before the floor slab.Mixing concrete for the floor slab.Foundation complete!Before the bricks start, the gaps beside the foundation must be filled and covered. It will take one or two truckloads of rubble.The first truckload of rubble arrives.Another load of rubble – and the bricks are here, stacked and ready to build.Digging the toilet pit by hand – down in the ground, one shovel at a time.Digging for the toilet pit continues, and truckloads of rubble stone arrive.Building the toilet pit: the walls are going up from stone. Tomorrow it gets its cover.Mixing the concrete for the pit cover.Done: the toilet pit is covered.The first block walls rise on the slab – the crew keeps going into the evening.The walls are getting higher – the outline of the rooms is now clearly visible.Today the walls of the three classrooms and the office are finished.The walls from another side: pillars and rebar stand ready.A look inside the rooms between the new walls.Steel cages go up, and the pillars get their wooden formwork.Ten more bags of cement.Mixing concrete on the slab next to the toilet pit.100 lighter bricks arrive: the engineer says our others are too heavy to build on top of the toilet pit.Concrete pillars now stand along the walls.The walls around the toilet start to rise.A day later, these walls are already much higher.
“Only our students come to work because it's weekend. They have free time so they come to work full day until evening. We don't pay them, it's for free … We need to finish on time to protect it.”— Modest, 13 September 2026, while waiting for the next transfer
Our partner
Dein Stern für Afrika: €23,000 for the first phase.
In July 2026 we signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Dein Stern für Afrika e.V., a non-profit association from Mering, Germany. They fund phase 0 and most of phase 1 – in three instalments, each released only after photos prove the previous step is built.
✓1st transfer To start building – received 24 July 2026€9,300
✓2nd transfer Released after photos proved the progress – received 2 October 2026€8,000
33rd transfer Due once the roof is built€5,700
That leaves a gap of €3,600 to finish phase 1 – plus the later phases. That is where we need you.
Bianca & Paul Schuller“It wasn't numbers or building plans that convinced us – it was the people behind them. Their passion, their commitment and their tireless work for the children of Zanzibar.”— Bianca and Paul Schuller, Dein Stern für Afrika e.V. – quote and photo from their website, translated from German
Open books
Every shilling is booked in public.
We believe donors deserve to see exactly what happens with their money – and we want to show that a grassroots project in Africa can handle funds with complete integrity.
Every purchase – every bag of cement, every truck of sand, every fundi's wage – is entered in our public construction ledger, with photos of receipts.
Where the informal economy offers no receipt, we photograph the goods and document the payment ourselves.
The numbers on this page are read directly from that ledger. Nobody types them in by hand.
Large donors are named; small donations are grouped by channel (bank, crypto, mobile money).
Most other charity projects pay for staff, offices, audits and fundraising campaigns – all out of donations. We are small enough to do without them.
Swiss charities with the Zewo sealaverage, per CHF 100 donated1
81127
projects 81
administration 12
fundraising 7
Straight Training Center live from our ledger
99.6
building – materials, fundis, transport, permits 99.6
bank & payment fees 0.4
exchange rate 0
administration 0
fundraising 0
Everyone running the project is a volunteer: Modest, our teachers, our students – and Yanis, who keeps the books. Donations pay only for the building itself: materials, the fundis, drivers and government permits.
Website and hosting are paid by Sustainable Integration GmbH, not from donations.
No advertising, no paid fundraisers. We grow by word of mouth.
For comparison
Charities that recruit donors through commercial street-fundraising agencies pay around CHF 800 per fundraiser per day. Covering that can take up to two years of a new donor's gifts – often the whole first year goes to the agency.3
Why we have no Zewo seal and no charity of our own
Zewo certification costs a small organisation CHF 3,000–5,000 up front, then a yearly fee and a new review every five years. Zewo itself suggests budgeting around CHF 1,300 a year.2 That money would come out of donations.
Instead, we publish every booking and every receipt. You don't have to trust a seal – you can check for yourself, any time.
The same goes for tax deduction. A charity of our own in Europe would need statutes, a board, annual audits and filings with the tax office. We would rather put that money and time into the building. If you need a donation receipt, give through our partner Dein Stern für Afrika e.V., a registered non-profit in Germany – they issue one on request.
Track record
We've done this before
Before the building, donors trusted us with two smaller projects. Both were delivered and reported in full.
Completed 2025
10 computers for our computer class
With $2,000 in USDC collected through Logos Circle Zanzibar we bought 10 Raspberry Pi computers in Switzerland, and monitors, keyboards and mice in Zanzibar. A local carpenter built the desks. The computer class started on 16 September 2025.
In November 2024 we applied to the TUI Care Foundation for €7,000 towards a building of our own and its equipment. The grant let us move into a larger rented home with an office, a computer room and a library, build bookshelves and computer desks, host two volunteer teachers in 2025 – and take the first step towards our own building.
€11one iron reinforcement barfor pillars and beams
€47a ceiling fanfor one classroom
€183a classroom doorwooden, locally made
€317a truck of sandfor ~100 bags of cement
Where are you giving from?
We picked the cheapest way for you – change it if it's not right.
Your currency isn't listed – for example Polish złoty or Swedish krona? Write to us – we can open a local account in your currency on request.
Who receives your donation?
So that you can give with a cheap local transfer, Sustainable Integration GmbH, a company in Switzerland, receives donations for Straight Training Center in euros, Swiss francs, pounds and dollars, and via Revolut. Under a written agreement with the school, it collects them, converts them to euros once a month and forwards everything in a single transfer to the school's own account in Zanzibar.
Your donation goes into dedicated donation accounts named “Donations to Straight Training Center”. They are completely separate from the company's own money and are used for nothing else. The only deductions are the actual bank fees for currency conversion and the monthly transfer, plus about €7 the school's bank charges on arrival – shared across all donations of the month, so even small gifts arrive almost in full. (Card and TWINT donations carry additional payment fees – see the “Card / TWINT” option above.) Every donation, every fee and every monthly transfer is booked in our public ledger.
Please use exactly the reference shown above – usually “Donation to Straight Training Center” – so it is clear the money is passed on to the school. Because Sustainable Integration GmbH is a company and not a registered charity, donations through it are not tax-deductible.
Want a thank-you and to see your name in the ledger? Add your name after the reference – e.g. “Donation to Straight Training Center – Anna Meier” – or send us a short message. Otherwise your gift is booked anonymously under its channel.
Can't give right now?
Sharing helps just as much – we grow by word of mouth.
Our new 4-minute film from 2026: the students, the teachers, and the start of construction on our own plot.
Also worth watching: an 8-minute documentary filmed by Yanis from Switzerland during his visit in 2021 – back when the school was still called Straight Line.
What happens here every evening
English Monday to Friday from 7 to 9 pm (sometimes also on Saturdays), computer classes in the mornings and on Sundays, and a literacy class for parents on weekends.
Our evening classGames are part of learningOur 10 computersOn mats, in rented roomsLearning with board gamesReading cornerTimetables and class photosCooking togetherReading together
Supported by
Thank you to everyone who made this possible
Sustainable IntegrationGmbH
Questions
Frequently asked questions
Who owns the building?
Straight Training Center owns the plot and the building. In our agreement with Dein Stern für Afrika we committed to use it for education for at least ten years.
What happens if you raise more than needed?
Money is used for the next phase in order. Once the building is finished, extra funds go into running the school – rent no longer being one of them.
What if the building costs more than planned?
Material prices in Zanzibar change with fuel prices, so we included a 20 % buffer. The foundation still cost more than planned. When costs change, we update the goal on this page – and the reason is visible in the ledger.
Can I get a donation receipt for my taxes?
Yes – if you give through our partner Dein Stern für Afrika e.V. (bank transfer or PayPal, see “Donation receipt” in the donate section). They are a registered non-profit in Germany and issue a donation receipt on request. Donations sent directly to the school or through Sustainable Integration GmbH – including card and TWINT – come without a receipt. Here is why.
How much of my donation is lost to overhead?
Nothing goes to salaries, administration or advertising: everyone running the project is a volunteer, and Sustainable Integration GmbH pays for the website. The only deductions are bank and payment fees – so far 0.4 % of everything we spent. Card and TWINT donations pay more: about 2.5 % + 0.89 per donation (details). See how we compare.
Can I donate anonymously?
Yes. Without a name in the reference, your donation is booked anonymously under its channel (bank, crypto, mobile money). We only name donors who want to be named.
Can I visit the school or volunteer?
Yes! Visitors are very welcome – please contact Modest in advance. Once the volunteer rooms are built, volunteers will be able to stay at the school.
Can I donate equipment instead of money?
Please contact us first so we can tell you what is needed most and how to get it to Zanzibar.
Contact
Talk to us
Questions, a visit or a thank-you? Modest answers on WhatsApp (in English), and we read every email.
Modest
