Community

Robert’s own family is a small, direct example of what that luck can do when it runs the other way. His grandparents came to Australia with nothing but the willingness to work, and no formal education to speak of. What they built instead was a conviction: that their children and grandchildren would have the chance they never did. That conviction shaped his family across generations — each one better educated than the last, each one able to do work and live a life that would have been unimaginable to the ones who arrived here. Education didn’t just open doors. It changed what the family was capable of, and what could be passed on to the next generation.

Having seen that power play out in his own family, Robert always knew education would sit at the heart of whatever charity Edge Mediations chose to support.

In 2002, The School of St Jude was founded by Gemma Sisia, a young Australian in her early 30s from Armidale, NSW. It began with a single teacher and a small group of sponsored students.

Today, the School of St Jude offers free, high-quality education to 1,800 exceptional primary and secondary students from underprivileged backgrounds in Tanzania, providing everything necessary for their academic success and overall wellbeing. Spread across three campuses in the Arusha region, the school offers boarding facilities for all secondary students and employs approximately 300 Tanzanian staff.

An impressive 97% of St Jude’s secondary graduates go on to higher education, supported either through the Beyond St Jude’s program or other means. Beyond St Jude’s assists hundreds of graduates into higher education and, separately, places volunteer teachers in government schools each year to lift the standard of education for students St Jude’s cannot enrol directly.

All students and scholars at St Jude’s are beneficiaries of scholarships.

Edge Mediations will donate $150 to the School of St Jude for every mediation it conducts. The donation will be made at the end of each month. It means every mediation booked with Edge Mediations does two things: it resolves a dispute, and it helps put a child in Tanzania through school — changing the odds for that student, their family, and their community.