Child Education in Grand-Lahou Cote d'Ivoire

OVERALL OBJECTIVE

The main objective of this project is to improve the living conditions of the rural population in the selected villages of Grand-Lahou district namely; (Belleville, Dioulabougou, Nandibo2, Samba Coulibaly, Kpapazè) by 2025.

SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES            

 80 % of children aged 2-5 to enroll in nursery schools in the 5 community-managed Centers and also receive a child’s health. Care, welfare and psychosocial assistance based in

• Sensitize families on the right of the girl-child to receive education
• Sensitize families on the dangers of early marriage of the girl-child with the aim of discouraging parents from marrying off their daughters at an early age.
• Give children aged 2-5 the opportunity to enroll in nursery schools in the selected villages. 
• Offer the children the opportunity to have free access to yearly health care, social welfare, and psychosocial assistance.

• Make women's work easier with a view to offering them the opportunity to carry out profit-making activities instead of being tied down at home by their toddlers.
• Encourage and assist families to establish birth certificates for their children.

OBJECTIVE 1:  Provide adequate structures to serve as classrooms for the children in the five target villages of Grand Lahou.

Materials were bought and the community people were involved in building the new make-shift schools. Significant progress has been made so far. But the work was slowed down due to the slowness of the community people and lack of adequate funding.

OBJECTIVE 2:  Build chairs and tables to facilitate a comfortable learning environment for the children.

Chairs and tables were successfully built.

OBJECTIVE 3: Provide medico- psychosocial assistance care to the children at least once a year.

This activity was supposed to start in January 2020 but due to unforeseen circumstances, it has not taken off.

OBJECTIVE 4: Find sponsors to take care of children’s school fees and canteen costs for children. 

The school in Nadimbo 2 has about 150 children attending the school. Most of the parents are trying their best to keep the children in school. However, about ten children were sent away from school because of the inability of their parents to pay their school feels.  New Life project and NGO FEMDEV came to the rescue of some of those children.

OBJECTIVE 5: Provide school bags and writing materials, blackboards, and didactic materials for the children.

NGO FEMDEV through the sponsorship of Newlife Project was able to send some didactic materials to the children in Nandibo 2 schools who were full of excitement. Blackboards were also made available for them.  However, we are still expecting the school bags, writing materials, and other didactic materials that were recently sent from NewLife project, Canada.

OBJECTIVE 6.  Sensitize parents on child/girls education

This was done in the five villages and continue to be done regularly to convince the parents to send their children to school especially their girls. A positive response is coming but quite timidly.

DIFFICULTIES AND CHALLENGES

 The challenges we are facing include lack of funds, lack of cooperation from the community people who are helping to build the classrooms. Some of the parents are still reticent about sending young children to school, especially the girl-child.  The roads are very bad and when it rains the roads become impassable. We have no project vehicle to visit and supervise the project as often as we would like to.

Submitted by,

Brenda Williams

in collaboration with the President, NGO FEMDEV, Abidjan, Ivory Coast

EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION IN GRAND LAHOU

GENERAL GOAL: Provide medico- psychosocial care and education to children in the five target villages of Grand Lahou.

OBJECTIVE  1: Two new classrooms are being constructed at two other villages known as Belleville and Nguessankro. We aim to build more adequate structures to serve as temporary classrooms for the children in the five target villages of Grand Lahou.

Classrooms at Nandibo 2 are already completed and 150 children are attending classes regularly.

OBJECTIVE 2:  Build 24 benches, 120 chairs, and 4 tables to facilitate learning for the Children.

This activity has already started and 120 chairs as well as 24 benches have been built and are being finalized. The tables have not yet been done due to insufficient funds.

OBJECTIVE 3: Provide school bags, books, blackboards and didactic materials for the children.

More than 100 books, several blackboards, and didactic materials were bought and distributed to the children. This was made possible through the funds donated by generous donors via Global Giving in collaboration with NewLife Project Inc. Canada sent in October 2019. Much excitement can be seen on the faces of the children as they displayed in the photographs.

OBJECTIVE 4: Provide medico- psychosocial assistance and education to the children at least once a year

The yearly psycho-medical check-ups of children will be starting in January 2020.

OBJECTIVE  5: Find more sponsors to take care of children’s school fees and canteen costs for children. 

OBJECTIF 6.  Sensitize parents on child/girls education

Sensitization is constantly being done during meetings with community members and parents of the school children.   We plan to reinforce the activity through drama and sketches done by the children and their teachers.

•  DIFFICULTIES AND CHALLENGES   The greatest difficulty we have is insufficient funds and also the lateness in executing tasks by the community people.  We also experience a lack of teachers as not many people are interested in teaching under-age children. The population is still finding it difficult to see the need to register their children in school at an early age. But we are determined to put more emphasis on community sensitization. Some of the children were sent home unfortunately because the parents could not afford to pay school fees for one whole year.
• PERSPECTIVES

We plan to quickly finish the ongoing work on the construction of classrooms and train three teachers for the three centers under construction. Secondly, we will do more community sensitization and begin registration of new pupils for the centers.

NewLife would like to thank our donors for their generous contribution towards our project in Grand Lahou. We went to families to sensitize them about the need to get their children to school. We have equally identified the first ten families that will receive financial support for their 2—5-year-old children in order for them to receive the education required.  

In order to facilitate the mission, NewLife has put together school supplies and other items that can be used to accomplished our project goals in the Grand Lahou child education program.  Our shipment is on it’s way to Grand Lahou.

Distribution of finance to provide lunch for students will be done this week before the reopening of school next week.

Once more thanks for all your support.

 Brenda Williams & Team

NewLife Project Inc.