Photos provided by Mr. Keenan Bross, C.S.C.
The Congregation of Holy Cross in the Province of East Africa has taken up a new project to establish a pre- and primary school at St. Felista’s Parish in Utegi, Tanzania. Eden Academy, opening in September 2026, is supported by the Holy Cross Mission Center, a ministry of the U.S. Province of Priests and Brothers. In this series, “Stories from Eden,” Keenan Bross, C.S.C. — who ministered at St. Felista’s Parish from 2024-2025 and serves as a bridge between Eden Academy and partners in the United States — will share the stories, milestones, and hopes shaping this new Holy Cross school.
The Foundations of Eden Academy
It has been a season of new foundations in Utegi, Tanzania.
Our first foundation is, of course, the physical one. In 2019, the people of Utegi gathered together shovels and stones and cement to build a foundation for a three-room schoolhouse at St. Felista’s Parish. But when funds did not materialize to continue the project, the hope of a primary school for our community went dormant. The existing foundation was literally covered in shrubs and overgrowth. Now, over six years later, with the support of generous donors to the Holy Cross Mission Center, we were able to uncover the foundation and bring it back to life. In April, Rev. Innocent Mwesigwa, C.S.C., pastor of St. Felista’s Parish, restored the existing foundation and began construction on our first classroom building. As July comes to a close, Fr. Innocent and his team are nearing the completion of the schoolhouse with two classrooms, a reception, a conference room, and a few offices, plus a restroom nearby for the little ones! It will be all ready for opening and registration on September 1.
We have learned, though, that a school is much more than a structure: it also needs a vision. And so the second foundation we have set over these months of preparation has been our vision for the school. After consulting with our community, praying and discussing together, we decided on the name for the school: Eden Academy. Our hope for the school, really, goes far beyond the benefits to the children we will educate; it is the transformation of our community into a New Eden. In other words, as Fr. Innocent often says, we want this school to be the heartbeat of our community: to revitalize our church and worship, to help us evangelize, to put children and their wellbeing at the center of our people’s livelihoods, and to empower our families to flourish in their own lands and languages. To make this possible, we want to develop a unique model of education specifically for our context: Eden Education (in Swahili, Elimu ya Edeni). We hope that, if this foundation — this model — can prove itself in Utegi, we may even be able to replicate it in other places where Holy Cross serves poor, rural Catholic communities.
We knew, though, that we could not embark on something as major as a unique model of education alone. And so the third foundation, which we have established in the past four months, is a vibrant partnership with the University at Notre Dame. In the spring, I (Keenan) reached out to some folks at the Global Center for the Development of the Child (GC-DWC) at Notre Dame to ask them if they might be interested in partnering with us in Utegi. They were enthusiastic from the very beginning, and we learned quickly that we were a perfect match. Over the years, they have worked extensively in Haiti (at over 200 Catholic schools) to empower parents and pastors to support their students not only at school but at home, an approach we have wanted to adopt in Utegi. They also have developed a play-based, multilingual curriculum for pre-primary education in India that is being used by thousands of teachers there, and we have been able to adapt this curriculum for Eden Education. And they have expert teachers and school leaders to train our teachers over these months so that they are ready to take on this awesome task of starting a new school. Eden Academy, in just four months, has become a key project for the Global Center for the Whole Child: a model school where we are trying to pilot a new, transformative model of Catholic education, with the hope of serving the people of Utegi as best we can and potentially even taking the model beyond Utegi.
Even with a structure, a vision, and a strong partnership, we would be missing the most important component of any school: teachers! The fourth foundation of Eden Academy, and likely the most important one, is our teachers. A few months ago, as our model and this partnership were coming together, Fr. Innocent realized that for Eden Academy to really thrive, we would need exceptional teachers. In particular, we needed teachers who would be able to adapt and thrive with Eden Education and set the foundation for many more teachers to come. So Fr. Innocent began looking across Tanzania. For our opening, now, we have four teachers: two who are wonderful folks from Utegi who will be able to connect with our local community, and two from far away who have been trained in the Montessori model and have served as school leaders early in their careers. For each of them, we have a teaching assistant, someone from Utegi with a love for children and education who will be able to help in the chaos of the classroom with three- to five-year-olds. In the months leading up to our opening, these teachers are doing weekly workshops with our professors at Notre Dame, co-designing the classroom spaces, drafting a school schedule, and becoming a wonderful team. Truly, I couldn’t think of a better group of people to found a new Catholic, Holy Cross school, and we look forward to seeing them in action very soon.
The last foundation, the one we don’t have just yet, of course, is our children and their families. In the end, all of this work is for them, and springs from our love for these families. In September, we will be able to welcome 50 children ages three to five into the two classrooms and begin working with their parents and caretakers. Then in January, the typical start of a school year in Tanzania, we will have finished our second classroom building and will open two more classrooms for an additional 50 children.
Truly, all of this work, all of these foundations, these teachers, partners, and dreams, has been filled with God’s grace. It is honestly amazing how quickly everything has come together, how we have found just the right people at just the right time, and how the generosity of a handful of people can transform, by God’s grace, the lives of a whole community. Eden Academy, truly, is not Fr. Innocent’s or Keenan’s or anyone’s work; it’s God’s work, and we trust that what God has begun in Utegi, He will continue to bless, inspire, and bring to completion.
Provided by Mr. Keenan Bross, C.S.C., and the Holy Cross Mission Center, August 2026.
