Thursday 20 November 2014

Tuesday afternoon - visit to Wera School

We arrived to a wonderful welcome from the school in their blue uniforms and all the children wanted to shake our hands, we felt like royalty! We heard a welcome song, and moved behind the school to listen to a number of speeches from teachers and members of the PTA. We learned that the school was built in 1937 and today has a 20 acre site with three blocks of 7, 4 and 2 classrooms to teach 836 pupils. There were 14 teachers; some lived on site in houses built by parents. There was also an office and a library.
Water comes from a shared bore hole 100 metres away but this does involve crossing the main road which is very dangerous.
Thanks to intervention from WaterAid the school has had latrines since 2012 - there are three blocks, each with 5 cubicles and also two disabled latrines. Water for hand washing is available and there were many hygiene messages painted on the walls of the classrooms.
The school are planning to grow vegetables and fruit so that a midday meal can be provided and are also planning on building more houses for teachers. They need gumboots and brushes to clean the latrines, more furniture and better disabled facilities and would love to have electricity!
We then listened to songs and dances and a poem from a little girl who had lost both her parents to HIV. Everyone got up to dance at the end!
We then visited the classrooms to help the children draw hygiene posters and also assisted with the making of sanitary towels, this means that more girls attend school as they can now change, most cannot afford to buy them so they have come up with a design that both girls and boys help to make.
It was a shame that we had to leave so soon, I would have loved to sit in on some lessons and speak to the children for longer.

No comments:

Post a Comment