Sunday, May 14, 2017

Wednesday, February 22, 2017
Attended a WASH (water and sanitation) meeting this morning and it got a little
heated. Don told the ministry of water that they failed to carry through with their
promise and ooh-wee! It got nasty. But in the end, the ministry acknowledged their
failure and corrected the problem.
We met with Sister Cobinah and Brother Kamara about doing a 270 table and chair
(desks) project for 6 schools. Each table and bench holds 3 children. They are going to
get 3 quotes from 3 different carpenters and let me know. Sister Cobinah and I are
both soft hearted and want to do something for the Kenema School for the blind. Their
roof blew off of their assembly building and it needs repaired. But that is the least of its
problems. This is a boarding school and they either sleep on very old ragged mattresses
or on the bare floor with no bedding. They have no food, so the students go to the
market everyday to beg for food instead of going to school. It is a really sad situation. I
am going to propose a project for mattresses and bedding and possibly some roof
repair. The roof repair would be approved but typically we do nothing with things that
cannot be sustained. So the mattresses and bedding would be pushing it. But, I am
going to try. The worst they can do is tell me "no".

1 comment:

  1. It is so sad to read about this school having so many issues with their physical housing of the students. But you make a great point in this post that children who are not sleeping, safe, and comfortable cannot learn; one can't expect a child to focus on school and learning when their basic needs have not yet been met. The top priority needs to be feeding these children, then fixing the roof and getting them new beds. Only after that will new desks and learning materials matter.

    ReplyDelete