Water is essential for life and in rural Cameroon, it is usually the women and girls who have to collect water each day for the family needs.  To have potable water near to their homes saves hours of walking and means more girl children can go to school, so we have always tried to provide water in villages where we have worked.  Access to hygienic toilets at school is another BSFA essential, so we are very excited to see the progress at our latest projects.

Borehole and latrine at the primary/nursery school at Bayelle, Bamenda

This school has around 2000 pupils and over 50 teachers.  It is one of the few currently operating in Bamenda and is an amalgamation of 3 schools that had been in existence before the war.  There was no potable water here because the local water supply had been damaged during the fighting, so children had to run out of school to find water to drink, dodging traffic and being exposed to abduction by armed groups.  There were also only 6 functioning toilets in the school for all the children and staff.

Thanks to a generous donation from one of our supporters, we have funded the construction of a borehole and a new latrine with 6 toilets and 2 wash-hand stations at CS Bayelle.  The borehole is 100m deep and will supply water all year round to around 5000 inhabitants in the area, including everyone at this school and the senior school closeby,

Borehole at the primary school at Kon Yambetta, Centre Region.

Our wonderful supporters, the Hindle family, raised the money to construct a classroom block, office and latrine at this school back in 2019 – and they have now funded the construction of a borehole here.  The video shows the Head Master tasting the clean drinking water after the borehole has been drilled.  The construction of the water point is almost complete now. The villagers can hardly believe the turnaround in their fortunes thanks to the Hindles, and we have learned that the academic success of the children at this school has improved dramatically.

 

New classroom block and latrine at the Secondary School at Ntui, Centre Region.

This school project is a real bonus.  It has been funded by an accumulation of smaller donations from regular donors and the Gift Aid we have been able to claim on these.  It really is remarkable what can be achieved when we all work together!

This is a bi-lingual school which has taken in a large number of English speaking IDP children who have fled from the war-torn NW/SW regions.  There are only 12 classrooms in the school, half of which are very crudely made from planks which are deteriorating fast in the very wet climate.  There were only 100 benches in the whole school, so overcrowding in the classrooms had become intolerable and there was only one toilet for the whole school.

We have been able to fund three new large classrooms with additional benches and an extra latrine with four toilets and hand-washing facilities.  We have also provided additional items to help prevent the spread of COVID-19 amongst the 850 pupils and 80 staff in the school.

As soon as the rains stopped in November, work took off at a cracking pace and the school will be completed by the end of January.  The whole community is thrilled by this project and very proud that they are helping in the construction of their new school building.

 

All these projects will be ready for the ceremonial openings by mid-February 2022.