The Making of a School
New building donated by local businesses in 2008.
The opening of the new, and the only, Secondary school in the village in 2005 gave the children an opportunity to continue up to further education.
The makeshift classroom was built by the local people from bamboo and coconut leaves. Inside the classroom there were only twenty chairs for the sixty-seven enrolled pupils, meaning that the majority of the students needed to bring their own chairs. Other classes had had their lessons outside in a tent if the weather permitted.
The current facilities and equipment are still woefully inadequate, despite the improvements which have already been made. There are shortages of all basic needs, such as textbooks, or a library or even a canteen where the children can go during their lunch and tea breaks. Although, the children are happy and very grateful that they have a school in their neighbourhood, they are very aware, that they do not have access to the facilities they need and that they do not have the opportunity to develop and demonstrate their talents and potential.
Recently, thanks to the support of local people and businesses, the school has acquired three new classrooms made of bricks and timber. A corrugated iron roof keeps out the rain, but it gets very hot during the summer and extremely noisy when it rains.
Calingag urgently needs a better school facilities
The current school is perhaps 'a victim of its own success' – and also of the children's remarkable determination to learn. Since the school opened the number of pupils has dramatically increased – almost four-fold – and the teachers are struggling to find room and resources to teach all of the 200 and more children who now go there.
With the government unable to help, Sikat has been working closely with parents, teachers and the children to work out the most important things we can do that will really improve the children's education.
Top of our list are more and better classrooms. The school desperately needs to replace the temporary classroom which has walls the rain can get in through and a tin roof that makes the room noisy when it rains and unbearably hot when the sun shines.
This is our priority aim for the school but we also want to provide the school with all the other proper buildings it needs to serve the children's needs.
The children would greatly benefit from four more classrooms, so that each age group can be taught in two smaller classes.
The school also needs:
- Secure and weatherproof rooms for children to use computers and science equipment
- A permanent library for the current temporary one to move into, with lighting, ceiling fans,and space to store more books
- Enough text books for each subject so every child has one
- A staff room for the teachers to organise their lessons in
- A canteen, loos and a first aid room to help with the children's well-being
A project like this is no small undertaking and as a young charity we would be grateful to hear from anyone who is able to help us achieve it for the children of Calingag.
Please look on our Volunteer page to find out more about how you could help.