The Jana Chetana Primary School in Gyaja, Nepal. If required, one floor can be added to the building.
Real Braille experts. Dictation exercise at the boarding school for blind pupils (UMAV) in Bamako, the capital of Mali.
French class at the primary school in Marena. The number of girls increases every year.
Our school building with three classrooms in Lougourougoumbou, Mali. In the mean time, a second building with a capacity for 180 boys and girls has also been built.
School Projects
Whoever gets the opportunity to spend a morning with pupils in the Nepalese mountain villages Gyaja or Ghaderidanda, will be reminded of an attitude that would now no longer seem to exist in Europe: the idea that it is a privilege to unlock the world through learning – with hope and human dignity finding appropriate expression. The children’s faces communicate eagerness to learn and happiness – and overwhelming pride of being able to participate. It is as if at the age of ten they already knew that their daily tuition opens up valuable opportunities finding orientation for their lives in a globalised world whose impact has way since reached even the most inaccessible regions of this world.
The same applies to pupils in West Africa. Fifty percent of the population in Mali is under 16. Providing children and adolescents with a solid school education broadens the potential of their mind, their ability to make judgements and enhances the creative force of future generations. But even in the short term, education work will enable people to read and grasp an instruction leaflet or an electoral programme. Those with an interest in politics will be able to read newspapers and women with market stalls can learn how to increase their business know-how.
At present, the Children´s Charity Organisation for the Third World oversees six schools in Mali and two schools in Nepal. All new buildings have three classrooms – each with a capacity for 60 pupils, a small administrative office, teacher accommodation, sanitary facilities and a solar power system, which allows for tuition after sunset. Textbooks for the main subjects are part of the basic supply for the pupils. In places where the number of pupils increases every year, we add annex buildings to make sure that all the children who want to learn can be taught.
One of our projects is particularly close to our heart: the boarding school for blind and visually impaired children (UMAV) in Bamako, the capital of Mali. 160 girls and boys from all parts of the country live and work there under the supervision of blind teachers and educators – most of them former UMAV pupils. The school works with an integrative, educational concept: from class 7 onwards, blind and partially sighted pupils are taught in mixed classes until their graduation with an officially recognised school-leaving certificate. We support the UMAV with teaching materials, glasses, optical laboratory equipment and Braille paper. With a solar power system for the entire building and forty new beds for the dormitories, we have been able to significantly enhance these young people’s quality of life.