Improve Education for 400 Children on Idjwi Island

The families in Buhumba Village are preparing for a major event at l'Ecole Buhumba!  

Early next month, the Education Minister from South Kivu and the King of Idjwi Sud Roger Ntambuka will be in Buhumba Village for a formal dedication of the new classroom building. They will be welcomed by the 500 primary school students, teachers, and community leaders. This important dedication will be followed by an education summit with directors of dozens of schools from across Idjwi Island.  

A group of our leaders and representatives will attend this very important event. We will take this opportunity to meet with school and community leaders to review our current programs and additional construction that is underway (new latrines) and planned (completion of the administrative building).  

We are thrilled that the children have a new classroom building that provides a better environment for learning and will make them proud - but we are not finished! We are continuing to work on facilities, programs, health care and nutrition at the school in order to provide the kids with real opportunity. We appreciate your interest and support.

The Idjwi Island Education Fund

We finished the new classroom building for the kids in Buhumba Village! Our crew, from Goma and from Idjwi, worked through the summer to complete the construction of the new building which houses six classrooms. The entire school community is thrilled and proud of the new building, which is constructed with a stone foundation, brick and mortar walls, a heavy timber supported metal roof, and concrete floors.

The new building is so popular that our enrollment has increased by approximately 150 children. We now have more than 500 children at the school. We are busy building new desks as fast as we can to provide additional work space for the new students.

Our work is not finished. While this new classroom building will provide a better learning environment for the kids, much more is needed to provide the kids with an opportunity to reach their full potential. We are continuing to work on public health, nutrition, sanitation and teacher training programs that will provide better conditions for the children to learn.  

We appreciate your support on this journey. There is more excitement to come.

We are thrilled to announce that the new classroom building in Buhumba Village is almost finished!

For the last two months, we have been working six days a week to construct the new building which will house six classrooms for EP Buhumba.  We started by loading a truck with supplies in Goma and shipping it by ferry to Idjwi Island.  We also sourced bricks, sand and other materials locally on Idjwi Island.  Our crew, which consists of workers from Goma and six local builders, has completed the exterior and roof of the building and is putting the finishing touches on the interior of the classrooms.  As is custom in the region, we are providing meals for the workers.  

The classroom building has a stone foundation, brick walls, and metal roof in the classic regional design with six classrooms that all open separately to the outside.  The classrooms, which are 3 meters by 4 meters, will provide additional space and a more comfortable learning enviroment for the kids.  For the first time, the kids will have a real floor.  The building has beautiful views of the valley and Lake Kivu.   

The children and community have been very excited about the construction project and have helped by carrying supplies and monitoring every development!  We expect the construction to be completed ahead of schedule and on budget.  The kids will have new classrooms when the new school year starts back in September.

While we are excited about the classroom building, there is more to be done.  We have already started to source new benches for the classrooms.  In the next phase of construction, we plan to complete the administrative office, which will provide the space for our health and nutrition programs.  We also are building new latrines.  

The Idjwi Island Education Fund is very grateful for our friends and supporters who have made this possible.  Thank you.

Friends and Supporters -

We are pleased to share a copy of the Idjwi Island Education Fund's 2015 Annual Report.  Our highlights for 2015 include:

• supporting the existing school through the Bustani sustainable garden project, granting scholarships to a small group of needy students, and providing incentive salary bonus payments to staff. 
• hosting our first-ever summer camp for the school kids, including art, crafts and athletics. 
• bringing a global health pediatrician to the school to conduct a preliminary health assessment of the kids and to obtain important information for developing public health and nutrition programs.  
• Raising more than $27,000 through more than 50 individual, foundation, and corporate donations, which positions us to complete construction of the classroom building this summer. 

We appreciate the contributions we received through volunteer efforts and donations during 2015.  

• Annual Report 2015 (PDF)
  

The Idjwi Island Education Fund is finalizing plans and the schedule for the construction of the entire school this summer.  We have the drawings, our contractor (who has delivered on time and on budget with prior work), and the support of the school community.  With some hard work, we can have the new school ready for the students for the fall term in September.  The 350 kids at the Buhumba Primary School will be thrilled.

We can take a major step in that direction during today's Global Giving Bonus Day.  There are $75,000 in matching funds available, and all donations made today through Global Giving will receive a match.  

Through the generosity of our supporters like you, we are very close to our funding requirement to build the classroom building.  If you can provide additional support today, the Bonus Day match will help us to get even closer to finishing the entire construction effort.