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.

 

What the Sukuta project involves

Our previous article, below, gave the background to how SSS became involved with, and is fronting, the renovation of the largest Lower Basic (primary) school – Sukuta – in The Gambia. This blog focuses on what the plans are, and what we hope to deliver within eighteen months.

Based on discussions with the school leadership and the regional director of education, we drew up a list of the priorities that would renovate the school and make it fit for the 2020s. These are:

 We will double the school's water storage capacity via solar-power

  

There is no piped water at the school. The supply comes from a well, it is too small. We will double its capacity.

As a rseult, we will increase the number of water standpipes from one to eight, locating them next to toilets, the food serving area and sick room

  

There is currently only one standpipe in the school, to serve 2,000 children. We will be increase this to eight, placing them near toilets, food serving areas and the new sick room  

We will completely rebuild the unhealthy and unsafe toilet blocks

  

The toilets at the school are unsafe, insanitary and unhygenic. The Sukuta renovation project will rectify this.

 

We will build and furnish the school’s first sick room, training staff in first aid skills 

 

  

There is no sick room for 2,000 students at Sukuta, but there is a space just ready to install one!

 

 

 This is the sick room we resored in Sohm. We plan to build and equip a facility like this in Sukuta, for the first time. 

 

We will restore the school's termite-ridden and unusable library

 

  

Infested and unusable library in Sukuta - 2,000 students denied access 

 

 

 The library in Sohm was in a similar position, before we restored it. We will repeat this in Sukuta 

 

We will extend the schools inadequate computer room

  

 

The computer room is well equipped, but too small for all pupils to gain access each week 

 

  

We will extend it to the pillars. The photo shows builders in discussion with school staff and education director  

 

We will give the providers of school meals shelter and water

 

Children get their lunch-time meals from (overwhelmingly female) vendors who sell very basic (bread or rice-based) food in the school grounds. There is no adequate shelter for either the women or the food and no running water to use in its preparation or for the children to wash.  Sheltered accommodation, with a water supply, will be provided for the women and children.

 

 

Our funding proposals to date, will pay for all of the above

There are, however, two outstanding elements of the nine-part project for which funding has yet to be identified.  We will seek the money this over the next few months,  so that all aspects of the project can be completed in one construction exercise. The unfunded elements are:

Refurbish and make fit-for-purpose the existing, but unfit, school hall

 

 

  

This is the dilapidated school hall, which is out of commission. We hope to be able to fund its restoration 

 

  

Because there is no hall, all large meetings take place outside. This is a meeting of the PTA, convened to consult on the school renovation project.

 

 

 This is the hall we built in Sohm, that now acts as an assembly hall, gym, meeting centre, performance area, prayer room and the main village hall

 

Establish the school's first staff room 

 

 

There is a disused classroom and storage area that with a little adaptation could be transformed into the school's first staffroom, for its 70 plus teaching staff. It is our aim to fund this 

All of our proposals have been put to the Ministry of Basic and Secondary Education, the school’s governors and its PTA, and they have been enthusiastically endorsed. The food vendors have been consulted and are delighted by them and will be involved in their design and layout of their new area.

Getting the band back together

Having defined the scope of the project, we obtained quotes from the construction company- Future in Our Hands - that we have worked with successfully in a variety of building projects in Sohm. It began as a Swedish NGO dedicated to training Gambian people in construction skills. It has gradually emerged to become a building company, jointly Swedish and Gambian managed, that operates almost exclusively in the not-for-profit sector, with an on-going commitment to train local labour in building skills.

In all of our dealings with them, to date, they have provided a high standard of work, to spec, on time and on budget.

We are confident that working with Lamin Saidy, the former deputy head at Sohm and now at Sukuta and the construction company that delivered in Sohm that we will be getting the band back together to deliver the renovation of The Gambia’s largest primary school, over the next eighteen months.

The third article of this three-parter on Sukuta, to appear in two weeks, will explain how we have managed to fund this major and exciting project.