The school now has 4 large blue-roofed
blocks. These include a total of 12 classrooms, a school
office/teachers’ room, a library, a small multipurpose
science laboratory and a computer training room. This year,
with government funding, a mains electricity connection has
been provided. Another big landmark was the start of
computer use in the school, with the installation this month
of 20 laptops in the computer training centre. These
computers were paid for largely by friends of my eldest
brother, George, in celebration of his 80th birthday.
The school is managed by the Ministry of
Education which supplies a number of staff and meets part of
the operating costs. Other costs are met by levies on
pupils. Currently 173 of the poorest pupils, mostly orphans,
have been awarded bursaries that pay some of these extra
costs and enable them to buy uniforms and enjoy school
lunches.
I can well understand that some of you who
have helped to get the school up and running may now wish to
end your support at this stage. However, there is still much
to be done to improve facilities and equipment at the
school, to raise the quality of the education that children
receive and to support the moves to extend skills training
to the community as a whole. If you feel pleased, as I do,
with the results achieved so far by the Community, I hope
that you will continue to help in these further exciting
developments.
The next major investment in the school is
for the construction of a 150-place dormitory for girls.
This will enable many girls to stay in school and to perform
better in their studies. Apart from saving them from the
risks of walking to and from school in the dark, it will
reduce the heavy domestic calls on their time when they stay
at home. The dormitory is now being planned by young
Australian architects who have set up an NGO called bricks +
cartwheels (www.bricksandcartwheels.org). They are involving
the community and pupils in the design process, and will use
the construction for practical training in building skills.
Other facilities still needed include a
full-scale science laboratory, on-site teachers’ housing and
a school office. Eventually four more classrooms may be
required to cut the number of pupils in each class and hence
improve the teacher-to-pupil ratio.
The school badly needs more donor support
for the continuation of the bursary programme on a
substantial scale, with a goal of awarding at least 25 new
bursaries each year. These are vital to enable orphans –
about one third of all school-age children because of the
HIV/AIDS onslaught – to attend the school. Most donor
commitments have now ended, with the result that the
programme remains badly under-funded. Annual bursary costs
per child are expected to rise to £130 (Euro 150) this year
(or£520/Euro 600 for 4 years), partly because of the need to
pay for computer O&M costs. Please think seriously about
funding a bursary or two!
Institute of Technology
From the outset, we had always envisaged a
need to offer training in practical skills, but could not
afford the necessary capital investment because of the other
urgent calls on funds. Now, however, this has started and
the aim is to progressively broaden the range of courses on
offer. These training programmes will be brought together
for management purposes to form what the Community is
calling an Institute of Technology.
This year has seen the start of training
in clothing manufacture (with help from
The Besom) and in woodwork, both in rented buildings.
The idea is that, in addition to offering training to school
leavers and other members of the community, these programmes
will sell goods and services to generate income. This will
meet their running costs and eventually generate profits
from which to fund bursaries for children at the secondary
school, thus reducing dependence on donors. The woodwork
class has already made desks and chairs for the computer
training centre!
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