USAID terminates $476K award for Valley Forge nonprofit assisting Tanzanian girls in need

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President Donald Trump’s administration has terminated thousands of foreign assistance grants and awards made available through the U.S. Agency for International Development as part of an effort to shrink the size of the federal government.

On Wednesday, the state department notified a Valley Forge nonprofit that its $476,000 grant from USAID had been terminated.

Nurturing Minds, with its Tanzanian partner SEGA (Secondary Education for Girls’ Advancement), planned to use the money to construct several new educational buildings and a security wall around the SEGA Girls’ Secondary School campus in Morogoro, Tanzania. For the past several months, construction planning and design work have been underway to build a new biology lab, a dormitory, and a makerspace for music, art and technology.

Nurturing Minds and SEGA reach more than 2,500 girls each year through continuing education, scholarships, mentoring and small business loans to help them thrive in Tanzanian society, according to Nurturing Minds’ website.

A Feb. 26 email states that Nurturing Minds’ nearly half-million-dollar award from the American Schools and Hospitals Abroad (ASHA) program was terminated for “convenience and the interest of the U.S. Government” pursuant to a directive from U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio in his capacity of acting administrator for USAID.

The notice further explains that Rubio and Deputy Administrator Peter W. Morocco determined the group’s award “is not aligned with Agency priorities and made a determination that continuing this program is not in the national interest.”

Nurturing Minds was founded in 2008 by American sisters Polly and Tracey Dolan to function as a fundraising arm and to offer tech support for the boarding school, run by SEGA.

WHYY’s “Morning Edition” host Jennifer Lynn spoke with Polly Dolan, of Gladwyne, Montgomery County, about her organization’s impact, advancing American values abroad and the USAID award termination.

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Jennifer Lynn: Polly, tell us about this project in Tanzania, just the basics.

Polly Dolan: We educate girls, and we reach more than 2,500 girls a year. We have a boarding school that accepts girls who otherwise would never have gotten a chance to receive a high school education, especially a quality, holistic education. We have scholarship programs so they can continue studying even beyond when they graduate. Our graduates go back to their home communities, mentor girls in clubs and teach them about their rights and entrepreneurship. They teach them so many things that help extend the impact just beyond the school.

JL: Morogoro, it sounds like it’s a tough place to grow up as a young woman.

PD: It is really tough, especially for girls, because there are so many household demands on them. If there’s a sick sibling, a parent or younger siblings — maybe they’ve lost their own parents and are now caring for the family — they are the first ones to miss school or drop out when things get tough.

JL: And tell me about the buildings.

PD: We’re really excited to build a biology lab, a very cool maker-space for arts and entrepreneurship, a dormitory for girls and a security wall. We were so excited when we got this grant because it means the campus will be an even safer place for the girls with the wall. We won’t have to deal with any threats from outside, and the biology lab is very much wanted by the government inspectors, who continuously tell us that we need one. So we were finally going to be able to accomplish all of this.

JL: Why biology?

PD: Well, it’s just part of the national curriculum, and you can choose your focus as a school. Ours are sciences and business.

JL: So, is this an extension of an existing campus?

PD: Yeah, we have over 25 buildings. We’ve been around since 2008, when we first started in a borrowed classroom from a local school down the road. Thanks to the generosity of USAID and thousands of supporters here in the U.S., we have managed to build this amazing campus and educate all of these girls. We’ve had 500 graduates so far, the vast majority of whom have received full scholarships because they came from very poor families.

JL: Who had the vision for this project, and what was the main goal?

PD: I had been living in Tanzania for 10 years before co-founding this organization. When you live there, you can’t help but see the situation that girls are in, the hardships they face just from having a different status in society. They get pulled into all kinds of exploitation. So the vision was to provide a very quality education, to give girls a leg up, but more than that, let them know their rights, where they stand in the world, offer them communication skills, self-development, reproductive health knowledge — basically, all of the things that we would consider a holistic, comprehensive education.

JL: Describe the excitement around the construction. Who else would benefit? Were there local workers doing the building and so forth?

PD: Yes, definitely. I mean, it brings employment to all sectors — contractors, architects, data collectors — because this branch of USAID is all about promoting humanitarian aims, but also promoting an image of the United States as a friend.

JL: Polly, the work is stopped. Your organization received a notice Wednesday from the federal government. It looks like U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, in his capacity as the acting administrator for USAID, determined your award is not aligned with agency priorities and made a determination that continuing this program is not in the national interest. When you received that notice, what went through your head?

PD: It just made me very sad. What’s really sad to me is this statement that our grant is no longer considered in the interest of the United States. We’re educating girls who otherwise wouldn’t have a chance. The U.S. has always stood for those kinds of values, and to think that all of a sudden we’re communicating to the world that our values have changed overnight and we’re no longer actually interested in reaching out to others or playing this kind of role in the world is sad.

JL: Polly, what would you have to say to anyone who may share this sentiment that Americans should look at America first, stabilize and build our economy first? Perhaps we have no business spending American tax dollars to do this in places like Tanzania.

PD: Well, it’s a conundrum because while a place like Tanzania received U.S. aid, which was the largest donor for decades, it’s also the most visible experience and symbol of the U.S. that exists outside the country. When you’re here in this country, sometimes all you can see are the challenges we face — ongoing challenges for equity and economic disparity, and the constant need to be vigilant with our government and democracy. But when you’re outside the country, you see a different perspective. And when people have a direct experience with Americans or with funds from USAID, they carry that experience forever. They’re going to be less likely to join some terrorist group, for example. That is maybe saying a lot of negative things, but they might be thinking, “Well, my daughter actually went to a school that was funded by Americans.” It has all of these other impacts that we sitting over here in the U.S. aren’t very aware of, but they impact our lives as well.

JL: What are your options right now?

PD: Basically, it’s going to take many years for us to be able to build these buildings. This grant was so wonderful because it enabled us to continue raising funds and channeling those funds for educating the girls.

JL: Thank you so much. Polly Dolan, thank you for your time.

PD: Thank you very much.