Now, thanks to the help of many friends and relations, Got Matar Secondary School has the core infrastructure for 600 students in place – a remarkable achievement in less than 4 years. This means that the Community Development Group is starting an exciting new phase in its support for education, based on two pillars.
The first pillar consists of improving educational quality and opportunities at the secondary school. This means putting up additional buildings, broadening the range of topics that can be studied, and improving the quality of education on offer. It also means sustaining the bursary programme, that now benefits 173 children, mainly orphans. Eventually, it may also imply further improvements to the facilities at the 10 primary schools that “feed” the secondary school.
The second pillar is to create new educational opportunities for people, including school leavers, in the community as a whole. The aim is to enable them to acquire knowledge and practical skills that can ultimately enhance their incomes and improve their quality of life and that of other members of the community.
These two pillars are well illustrated by the activities that the Community is taking on this year:
Secondary School Development
This year, funds have already been used for purchase of equipment for the science laboratory; acquiring books for the library; construction of an extra latrine block for girls, and financing of bursaries.
The immediate priorities for funding are to construct a girls’ dormitory and to provide 20 computers and ancillary equipment, powered by photovoltaic generating panels, to be used for training pupils in computer literacy.
Institute of Technology
The underlying philosophy is that the Institute should offer training in practical skills and that, as a by-product of this, it should generate income through product sales. Successful students would be awarded national certificates after 2 years’ attendance. Income would be used to defray operating costs and to ensure local funding for the secondary school bursary programme, reducing its donor dependence.
The idea of such a skills training programme was born at the beginning of the school-building project. Only now, however, has sufficient funding been collected to enable the first course – on clothing manufacture – to begin for 10 young people.
The next developments include a Women’s Centre to assist victims of household violence to become more self-reliant and aware of their rights. Funding is also sought this year for a small computer centre for the Community, as well as to set up a training/income generation programme on building skills (carpentry, masonry, plumbing, electrification).
Funding
Until now, the programme has been financed mainly by individual donations. Now the Community has started to seek funds from trusts and private foundations.
Many thanks to The Besom for its grant of £2000 towards equipment for the clothes-making facility.
Applications for financing the computer training facilities have been made to DFID’s development innovation fund, and my eldest brother, George, is also raising funds for this. The Australian NGO, Bricks and Cartwheels, has committed itself to help in the development of the girl’ dormitory; and, finally, an application has been made to the Collison Trust for assisting in construction of the women’s centre.
The combination of the new Secondary School and the emergent Institute of Technology is bound to have a huge impact on the welfare of young people around Got Matar.
Results
Hopefully the many people who are skeptical about funding programmes in Africa will be encouraged by what the Community has achieved since September 2006. Their success is due both to a strong sense of local “ownership” and their considerable management abilities. They have shown that, with quite modest resources, it is possible make a huge difference to the prospects facing hundreds of young people in a very deprived community that has been devastated by AIDS.
Please keep helping!
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