Education
Education
With the school project in Mushapo ADH wants to ensure a good education for the students in order to give them and the village a better future. ADH offers the schooling for free, so that also children from poorer families can attend the school. With a proper teaching staff ADH tries to establish a good teacher ratio, so that the children can be treated according to their needs. The curriculum of the officially recognized school is based on national guidelines, but already in the first grade, the language is French.
May
2015
Visit from the German Embassy
After a turbulent journey from Kinshasa I (Wolfgang Schmidt) finally arrive in Mushapo late at night together with Mrs. Maning, spouse of the German ambassador. To my surprise many children still wait for us and welcome us with shouts of joy. On the morning after 420 of our pupils sing for us very enthusiastically. One of the children and Pierre, our school principal, welcome us with a speech of thanks. After a few more songs, a group of children performs a sketch. When Mrs. Maning presents a gift to them, they are gigantically happy. After visiting school classes in their new buildings, we meet up with the teaching staff and afterwards with the school committee: two village chiefs, the school principal, representatives of parents, the person responsible for the newly created health center and with Jean, our manager. Towards evening, we sit down together and talk for quite a while about the future of the project.
Apr
2015
School lessons in the new buildings on our property
Lessons moved to the new brick buildings on our property. Since the start of the project in 2011, a dream finally comes true after four exhausting years. Suited to the launch of the school lessons in the new school buildings we received all sorts of functional material donations: Orgaman, a local business, which helped us several times in the past, donated five cartons full of notebooks for the children. Our good friend and long-time supporter Ahmed, the Director of “Congo Futur”, transported them for us from Kinshasa to Tshikapa together with two cartons of drinking water and school and food supplies, which we packed for our stay. Furthermore, Ahmed organized a jeep for our journey from Tshikapa to Mushapo, since he does not want the wife of the German ambassador, who wants to visit our project in Mushapo soon, to ride on a motorcycle through the bushes for 4 hours. Mohamed, another good friend for many years and owner of a local pharmacy, provided us with three cartons full of medication against malaria and flu, including antibiotics and multivitamins.
Mar
2015
Training courses for our teachers
An inspector of the regional Education Department gave all teachers of Mushapo and of the tree surrounding villages additional training in teaching. The course lasted three days and took place at the catholic church of the neighbouring village Kakondo. Also our principle Pierre and two teachers of the upper class were invited to join a special three-day training course in regional capital Kamonia, where instructors transmitted them special knowledge and skills. The trainings costs for the teacher were sponsored by ADH.
Jan
2015
A Good start into the new trimester
The second trimester in our school had a good start and brought about some changes. Just like on any other normal school day, the new trimester was started with a short speech by teacher Mr. Mukedi and the usual prayer by the entire student body. For the new school year we hired a new teacher for the secondary stage, Jeremie, who completed his studies in Kinshasa and brings with him many years of teaching experience in Kamonia and Tshikapa. He is an excellent teacher of French and hygiene, and trains the teachers of the elementary school. For computer science at the secondary level, we donated a laptop. This way they’ll have, with the devices of one of the teachers and Jean, a total of 3 laptops to be used for educational purposes. We also got a new copy machine for the exams, which take place three times a year. We are currently working with Jean on new photographs of all the children, especially of those for whom we have received sponsorship. However, as we said at the beginning of the project, we cannot guarantee a long-term financed school attendance of individual children because, just like happened again this year, some of the children have moved away with their families. If, however, a child departs, then the donations from the sponsorship are transferred to another child in our school.
Dec
2014
Student Camp
At the end of the 1st trimester the students receive a certificate. To prepare our oldest students for life, Jean and some of our teachers organized during the Christmas holidays a special 3-day camp for 22 of the oldest students. They had a lot of fun and some special courses in French and various deep topics. With the help of our generator and projector they saw a few inspirational, faith-building movies in the evenings. In addition to their scholastic education we believe that a spiritual and moral education is very important. We want the children in our school to be generally well prepared for their individual life. In this regard, the camp for the children was certainly a big help.
Nov
2014
New school inventory
From the Ministry of Education in Kamonia our school in Mushapo receives new educational material: 48 math and French books for the 3rd and 4th grades.
Oct
2014
At the initiative of the village population a Secondary School is established
With the new school year, our school population has grown again. By now the number of students in the primary stage (1st - 6th grade) has increased to 414 students. We have currently 85 students in the secondary level (7th - 9th grade) set up so that our school now serves nearly 500 students. The problem with a lack of classrooms we solved by teaching secondary school in the afternoon when the rooms are not used by the primary level. The set-up of the secondary education comes from the initiative of the local population, which has even agreed to pay the appropriate teachers. We are very excited about this local initiative because it shows us how much the parents are behind our project and are willing to even contribute to it. As much as we welcome this interim solution, we will continue to apply for official teachers' salaries as soon as possible at the Ministry of Education. For this, a lot of patience and constant insistence is required.
Sep
2014
New school supplies
Wolfgang meets with Jean in Kinshasa to plan the necessary purchases for Mushapo. Among other things, the school requires a good photo copy machine for which we can easily find spare parts and ink cartridges in the region round about Mushapo. We also bought materials for new school uniforms and other school supplies such as chalk, exercise books for pupils, etc. A total of 140kg of school materials and small gifts for the children was transported by truck from Kinshasa to Tshikapa and from there by bike transport to Mushapo. We are now prepared for the new school term, and can have a good start in the new school year.
