School construction

If you have ever dreamed of helping to build a school in Africa, this is your chance. 12 primary schools in eastern Chad are in partial stages of construction, and need a little extra funding to be completed. When you read some of what is needed and why, you won't know whether to laugh or cry. What makes this an unusually important opportunity, though, is the location of the schools. They serve Chadian villages in the vicinity of Darfur refugee camps, communities desperately poor to begin with and further stressed by the massive influx of refugees. Your support for the villagers, who have been relatively overlooked by donors, will have the added benefit of easing tensions in this critical region.

The schools are of two types. Some, like the one in Lira village, shown at the right, are little more than temporary grass shelters, waiting to be replaced by permanent construction. They aren't very good for the students, but the animals love them — for lunch — and this is a situation we cannot allow to continue. The villagers have already obtained bricks for the new schools, and are eager to start building, but they can't until the roofs are funded. Each zinc roof (including zinc, nails, and wood) costs 500,000 Chadian Francs (XAF), or a little more than $1,000.

With a roof and bricks, these schools will look something like the one pictured at left, in Bredjing village. We know from experience that this type of school has its own problems, one of which you can appreciate from this photo. With only openings for doors and windows, animals can easily enter the school and make a mess — a mess that is very difficult to clean when the floor is nothing but sand. Our partner in Chad, CORD, has requested that proper doors and windows be installed (100,000 XAF, or about $200), as well as cement flooring (75,000 XAF, or about $150), to prevent this occurrence. The other problem, invisible here, is that the bricks are typically held together with mud, which gradually washes away with each rainy season, until there is structural collapse. To keep the structures sound, cement is needed to plaster the brick walls inside and out (225,000 XAF, or about $470).

The schools waiting on roofs are in the villages of Bahkita, Faguire, Kinouane, Kodolok, Koundoulba, Lira, Mobouguine, and Rataye — our goal is to raise $1,400–$1,870 for each to cover all of the above construction needs. Why the range? Our partner CORD will contribute the wood needed for the roofs to the six villages that first complete the rest of their construction.

The existing brick schools, which only need doors, windows, cement floors, and cement plastering, at a cost of $830, are in the villages of Barde, Bredjing, Fodji, and Kadjala.

Each village school has between 125 and 225 primary students (as of December, 2007), for a total of 1,930 students. This means that the school construction costs amount to less than $10 per student! In addition, 7,434 pre-school students are working their way up to the primary level in these villages, and may benefit from the school improvements in the future.

We welcome donations of any amount towards school construction. Every dollar helps. We also hope that you will organize a group — co-workers, classmates, relatives, etc. — to adopt a school, supporting all of its construction needs. Whether at the $830 or $1,400–$1,870 level, any group (or generous individual) adopting a school will receive before and after photos of the school, as well as a plaque recognizing your leadership in this village education program. If you have questions about adopting a school, please contact us.