School Construction
School Construction
Until the start of our school project in early 2011, the village of Mushapo did not have their own school. To spare the children their daily long walk to neighboring villages and in order that more children can get a good education, ADH made the realization of a school project in Mushapo its goal. The school project is meant to last: Several school buildings with bright spacious classrooms of solid, durable materials should guarantee a permanent school operation no matter what the weather conditions. In addition, important new jobs will be created in the rural area by building schools and the operation thereof.
Mar
2016
Progress with our Health Center, we hope for a launch in the near future
Robert showed us the progress with the construction of the Health Center for Mushapo. The walls are almost completely put up. There is an urgent need for a quick completion. The following example underlines this urgency: “Our school director Pierre in Mushapo asked us to come and pray for his daughter who had a huge red spot on her neck, about 10 cm in diameter, which looked like some kind of blood infection. He told us that many children suffer from this same problem there. The poor girl was in horrible pain and had missed school already for a week. Since our medical center is not in operation yet, there is no doctor or Health Center nearby, unless you walk 35 km through the bush to the next bigger town. After praying for this sick girl we went to bed and moved by it all I couldn’t go to sleep and started to cry. Pierre has nine more mostly little children in his care. Three of them are his own, the others are from relatives who can’t take care of them, something you find often in Congo. Anybody who takes such children in his home and cares for them is a hero in my eyes.” (Wolfgang Schmidt)
Sep
2015
Current construction report
We managed to make the following progress of construction in Mushapo lately: The water tank is finished and waits for the new rainy season. The cement floors of school building 1 and 2 are finished, the 3rd building is still under construction. Its walls are already up to the level of the windows. The roofs with wooden supports are done for all 3 toilets. In addition, the roof with wooden supports is done for the Health center and the laying of the foundation will start. For the cement floor and the foundation of the health center, we need more gravel and will pay local workers for the transport to the construction site.
Aug
2015
Production of brickwork continues
During the school holidays, our manager Jean took his entitled vacation to visit his family in Kinshasa. Our school principal Pierre will temporarily replace him during his vacation in order to supervise the work in Mushapo, especially the ongoing brick production. The manufacture of new bricks for the third school building and health centre is still running at full speed. Preparations are also being made for the new school year, to which we expect around 400 children in our primary school and 100 in our high school.
Jun
2015
Water Reservoir
The new water reservoir is nearly finished: A deep pit was dug, interior walls were build out of bricks and faced with cement. Rainwater is collected from the roof of the school buildings and conducted into the reservoir. For this purpose, trenches were omitted. Additionally, plumbers embedded water pipes into the earth and connected them. Now the water can be obtained from the reservoir as required. Furthermore, the work on the new toilets has started and the production of thousand new bricks for the upcoming new buildings is running at full speed. Unfortunately, there were also many setbacks this month. Two children died of typhus due to the lack of medical care. This makes us all even more grateful for the prospect of the soon to be developed health center in Mushapo. It is urgently needed there. The land area, on which we will create the new health centre, is prepared for the construction at this moment.
May
2015
German Embassy helps generously
Mrs. Manig, spouse of the German ambassador, who supervises mini-projects within the work of the embassy, visits our school project in Mushapo. During our visit of the new school areal, we inspect the old toilets (hole in the ground) and are happy to supply adequate new toilets with water flush, soak aways and hand washing facilities to the school in the near future. Work on the water reservoir has already started, a pit was constructed. We were also able to see, where the newly created health center will be located – the German Embassy sponsors all the three projects. We are greatly indebted to Mrs. Manig, who came all the way to Mushapo under difficult circumstances, and to the German embassy for their enormous support for our project. The fact, that despite many problems the implementation of changes is possible, boosts our hope, if don’t give up.
Apr
2015
Finally! – Moving to the new school buildings
Lessons moved from the old temporary buildings and the brick building located on the former farm “SADR” to the new brick buildings on our own land. It was a special moment for everyone, for which the children were happy to help by cleaning the school grounds. Since the start of the project in 2011, a dream finally comes true after four exhausting years. Since we had to construct a water reservoir in the beginning in order to collect rainwater before dry season approaches in the following month, construction of the third new school building on our land has now to wait a little while. The possession of a local water supply is crucial for further construction projects, so we do not have to transport water from the nearest river located 80m further below in the valley.
Mar
2015
The Urgency of our work
The second school building is almost finished and is soon ready for usage. The windows and doors are built, installed and decorated. This just happened right on time: during a violent storm two weeks ago, the temporary school building, which was exposed the most to the wind, was severely damaged and could no longer be used. Temporarily we use a few smaller farm buildings for lessons of the pupils. This shows that there is an urgent need to complete the new brick buildings on our grounds. Our plan is to have the two buildings completed at the most as soon as possible, so they can be used for lessons. Directly afterwards, we will work on the third building, so that regular school activities can take place in the new buildings. In the planning phase cement has to be provided. One the one hand, it is needed for pooring out the floors of the three school buildings. On the other hand, proper toilets with septic tanks and water reservoirs are planned so as to absorb water in rainy season for dry season.
Feb
2015
Busy work continues
The masonry of the second school building has been completed. We record a slight delay in the construction of the third building due to transporting the bricks from production to the construction site. Parents, who previously helped with the transport, have to work on their fields at this time of year and are therefore unable to help. Therefore we have to employ to additional workers. These two students from upper school help us twice week transporting the bricks. They are happy to contribute with something to the school, since for an equal standard they would have to visit the secondary school in Tshikapa, which is about 60 km away. That would be too complicated respectively impossible for most of the pupils. Because there is at the moment no rainwater, we had to find new workers to take water from the fountain two km away to construction site.
