A new school year starts at St Paul’s Ntahkeka, Bamenda
- September 18, 2024
- Education
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Our biggest ever school project was finally completed and handed over to the community of Ntahkeka in Bamenda II on 30th May 2024. It was a day of great excitement and celebration. This had been an audacious project from the start and it faced many difficulties during construction, but the community was not daunted and it is rightly proud of its achievement.
In January 2023, two of our trustees visited the primary and nursery school that had been set up in the basement of the church hall at St Paul’s, in order to provide access to education for displaced children that had come to Bamenda to avoid the violence of the war being waged in the rural parts of this region. The church had a very small plot of land on which it was hoping to construct a permanent school building, and we returned to the UK with hopes of attracting funding for three classrooms, an office and a latrine on this site. A new supporter of our charity was happy to provide the funds the project, but many challenges lay ahead. The school was planned to provide places for just over 100 children – but even before one brick had been laid, over 300 children had turned up hoping to enrol. We agreed that, instead of a single storey building that was totally finished and furnished, we could turn the project into a two-storey building and leave the plastering, painting and furnishing until additional funds could be found. In the meantime, the project suffered from delays caused by lengthy lock-downs imposed by the war. Materials were slow to arrive on site because of these lock-downs and work had to proceed with great caution so as not to attract too much attention.
However, the community was right behind the project from the start and turned out in great number whenever plenty of unskilled labour was needed. We were naturally delighted when our supporter said he could send the funds to finish the six classrooms – and even more delighted when the community used the project as collateral against a loan which could be used for yet another storey with three more classrooms.
The new school year has seen an enrolment of more than 500 children at the school, many of whom had been out of education for more than five years because of school closures caused by the war. This has really been a wonderful example of Participatory Development at its best – where the local NGO, the funders and the community all pull together to realise a project which will benefit children for generations to come.
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