Signing off the Sukuta project (2)

This is the second of two articles signifying the successful conclusion of our Sukuta Project. The first immediately precedes it, on this blog

We have feautured the project frequently over the last three years in words and pictures. This episode is aimed at showing, mainly in picture form, the difference your - and Rotary's - money has made to the 2,000 children attending the school.

On International Women's Day 2022, the then head of Sukuta LBS (Mariam Mendy, dressed in white, second from left), the CEO of contractors Future In Our Hands (Jainaba Sarr, dressed in orange, second from right), together with then President of Brusubi Rotary club (Omar Jallow, far left) and John Walker, representing Sohm Schools Support and Redbridge Rotary (far right) sign contract for FIOH to deliver the Sukuta project.

 

 

There were seven aspects to the project. Below, adopting a before and after approach, we present a photographic essay of the differene our Sukuta project has made to a large number of young African lives, now and for many years into the future.

Water Supply

Before: one water tank for 2,000 pupils

 

After (1): second water tank ready for installation

 

After (2): second water tank in place

Doubling the water capacity of the water supply enables much more hygenic practice and cleanliness around the school.

Standpipes

Before: There was only one water standpipe for 2,000 children to wash their hands (including after toilet and before food) in the entire school.

After (1): one of the ten new standpipes installed in the school

After (2): another of the ten new standpipes installed in the school

After (3): yet another of the ten new standpipes

Toilets

Before (1 and 2): Old toilets, before the project

Under construction: The new toilets

After (1 and 2): running water in new hygenic toilets, for the first time

Library

Before (above and below): Old library suffering from termite damage and unusable

 

After (above and below): newly reconstructed library, termite free and fit for use. The building is waiting for Brusubi Rotary Club to provide the promised furniture, and then it will be up and running and a fabulous facility for 2,000 pupils

Sick room

Before: No sick room in the school; a space identified to construct one

After: The sick room built.The building is waiting for Brusubi Rotary Club to provide the promised furniture, so that it can become a first aid and medical centre for the 2,000 pupils.

Computer room

Before: too small, unfit for purpose and unable to offer space for all the pupils

After (above and below): greatly expanded facility, with air-con, in which all pupils can receive ICT lessons

Vendors stalls

Before: The hot, unhygenic place where local women sold school lunches to the 2,000 pupils at the school

After (1 and2)- above and below: the new clean, hygenic building created for local traders to sell lunches to the school's children

After (3 and4)- above and below: traders setting up, and children using the new school meals facility

 Signed, sealed, but not fully delivered - yet

 

A year ago Redbridge Rotary (with significant SSS backing) and Rotary International provided the money for the completion of the Sukuta project. Under the terms of the agreement, Brusubi Rotary club were entrusted to supervise its delivery. Contractor, Future In Our Hands, went beyond expectations in executing the contract to price, despite building supply price inflation.

 

The completion of the project was hailed on Gambian TV and Brusubi Rotary club, via current president, Alpha Jallow, was happy to take credit for the delivery of this carefully constructed and delicately financed project.

It has been a great success, and SSS supporters and Rotarians, world-wide are to be thanked and praised for their generosity in ensuring that.

All that is needed now is for Brusubi Rotary club to put its money where its mouth is (to the tune of less than $1,000 US) and deliver on the promises it made to Gambian TV and furnish the library and sick room. That simple, low cost, pain-free gesture will ensure that 2,000 young Gambians will benefit from everyone else's efforts. 

 

It will also illustrate that Rotary values are extended to and be displayed by Gambian Rotarians too. Service before self-service. Charity before vanity.

 

The four photos, above and below, are of Brusubi Rotary President, Alpha Jallow taking credit for the delivery of the project. Now let the club deliver on its promises.

 

Rotary and Sukuta

There are almost daily reports in the UK press about how charities have suffered financially during the COVID pandemic, as funds have dried up and donors cut back.  SSS, in its own small way, has been no different. School lockdowns have meant we have lost our largest single source of income this year, the fund-raising efforts of the ever-generous Beech Hill school in Luton. Some of our biggest backers have either cut back or diverted their funds to perhaps more pressing problems during the year.

But, to the rescue has come Rotary International!

  

Rotary - inspirers and principal funders of the Sukuta project

The Rotary Club of Redbridge has been a regular supporter of SSS over the last four or five years, and clearly liked what they have seen in terms of feedback and the evidence of generous donations being put to good and effective use.

John of SSS became a member about eighteen months ago and the club has encouraged us to spread our wings within the Rotary family in seeking support for our efforts with Gambian education.

As mentioned in the previous two posts, we have addressed most of the major infrastructure challenges that required fixing at the Sohm primary school (electrifying the school, upgrading the staff quarters, renovating the toilets, regenerating the school’s library, increasing the water supply and access, revamping a sick room, refurbishing a six-classroom block and finally building a brand new multi-purpose hall).

Our key contact at Sohm, deputy head, Lamin Saidy had been transferred to a similar post in the country’s largest primary school, in Sukuta – essentially a suburb of the country’s biggest urban sprawl, Serekunda – where he found similar problems of infrastructure neglect.

  

Lamin Saidy - Sukuta's deputy head - acknowledging the role Rotary played in helping to transform Sohm Lower Basic School

Together, and with the encouragement of the school’s leadership, staff, PTA governors and local education director, we put together an ambitious nine-point plan, spelled out in the previous post:

·         Double water tank capacity

·         Greatly increase the number of water supply standpipes

·         Renovate unhealthy toilets

·         Build the school’s first sick room

·         Bring the dilapidated library back into use

·         Build a covered area for food suppliers

·         Increase the size of the school’s computer room

·         Restore the out-of-bounds school hall, and

·         Create the school’s first staff room

Rotary International is a huge organisation, dedicated to charity, with clubs in almost all countries world-wide. Each club is semi-autonomous in terms of fund-raising activity and charity giving; but the collective efforts of Rotary have been amazing.

We have constructed a complex structure of mainly Rotary-based funding arrangements that will finance most of the £60,000 required to pay for the Sukuta project, transforming The Gambia’s largest primary school into one that is fit-for-purpose in facing the challenges of the 2020s.

  

The PTA meets and enthusiatically endorses all elements of the Sukuta renovation project - including the proposal to restore the old school hall (as yet unfunded) - so that their future meetings can be held inside!

Sohm School Support is contributing £10,000 to the funding of the Sukuta project. Redbridge Rotary is adding a further £5,000. The London District of Rotary is contributing $10,000 (US). Redbrige has a neighbouring club, Barkingside which is generously contributing to the project and it is twinned with clubs in Holland and Slovenia who are also adding upto 1,000 Euros each.  Based on this network of support, we currently have a grant application to Rotary International for a global grant of a further $10,000.

In order to be eligible for the Global Grant we have had to enlist local (to The Gambia) support. So, the Gambian Ministry of Basic and Secondary Education (MoBSE) is contributing the reconstruction of the school toilets as its contribution (see photo). And the Rotary Club of Brusubi (about 10 miles from Sukuta school) will becoming the local managing agents for the project.

New toilets are under construction - the Gambian government's contribution to the Sukuta renovation project

If we are successful with our Global Grant application, we hope to begin the major renovation project as the school breaks up for the summer holidays, so the bulk of the most disruptive work can be undertaken when the children are not present. We anticipate everything being finished within one school year.

We are confident of the plans, because, as explained previously, we will be getting the band back together for construction purposes.  It will be the same people – school deputy head, Lamin and contractor, Future in Our Hands – who have worked so successfully in Sohm with us over the years, who will be delivering in Sukuta, overseen and prompted by the support and attention of the local Rotary club.

  

Offices of Future in Our Hands - the not-for-profit building contractors who will undertake the construction work

So, the old team – ex-Sohmites – will deliver on a project overwhelmingly funded by the new team – Rotary International. The Rotary contribution is quite incredible, involving the generosity of clubs from four nations (England, the Gambia, Slovenia and Holland), together with the transglobal Rotary International, in oreder to transform the educational prospects for children in one of Africa's poorest countries.

We hope to have full funding in place to start the project in July so that seven of the nine sub-projects can be delivered over the following twelve months. The final two (italicized in the list above: school hall and staff room), however, are currently unfunded.

It is our aim to raise the £12,000 required for these two elements within the next year, so that the entire nine-aspect renovation project can be completed within one calendar year of having the construction workers on site.

Your support would, as ever, be most welcome.

Next edition in two weeks: Not forgetting Sohm!