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Finlandia University sends students every year to study in Tanzania but now a couple wants to bring back with them more than just their experience.
Senior Logan Moore visited Tanzania last year along with his wife, Hannah Scott-Moore, who is a Finlandia alumna. While they were there, they became attached to 15-year-old Alvin Mongi, an impoverished Tanzanian student who was studying at the Kisarawe Lutheran Jr. Seminary.
“He has one of the biggest smiles I’ve ever seen and just his personality—it was so shocking because you see the lack of opportunity in another country, especially Tanzania which is the third most poverty stricken country in the world,” Moore said.
Logan and Hannah learned that Alvin was going to be kicked out of the school due to his family’s financial situation and used their own money to pay his debt to the school. Their contribution meant Alvin could continue his education, something his father was incredibly grateful for.
“Fantastic man,” Moore said of Alvin’s father, “trying as hard as he can in the situation that he’s given and he just couldn’t make ends meet. We met him in Dar es Salaam (Tanzania’s largest city) while we were there. We met him for breakfast and he broke down crying knowing that we were doing this for his child because he was unable to.”
Logan and Hannah want to go one step more and bring Alvin to the United States to attend school. “So we’ve been trying to go through the process of an F-1 Student Visa to where he can come over for a year or more, where he actually gets to study here and learn as much as possible and give him the opportunities that he wouldn’t have over there.”
They are asking for the community to help support this effort and have set up a couple of fundraising sites to collect funds. “If you’re feeling generous or this story is touching to you, we actually have a Go Fund Me page at https://www.gofundme.com/education4alvin and we also have t-shirts for sale that my wife actually created. She’s a graphic design artist and she was able to create a t-shirt and put it on https://www.bonfire.com/education4alvin/. And you can also follow us on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/explore/tags/education4alvin/top/?hl=en.”
