Help our school rise again after the pandemic

As in the UK, the school in Burundi is closed for the summer holidays. Soon the children will return for a new school year, eager to learn and fill their curious minds.

The last year has imposed many challenges on the school and the staff.  A decrease in funding has brought the school to the edge of surviving, forcing us to work with a decreased amount of staff and even cutting back on the porridge programme. Although providing a daily meal for the children is one of our main goals, in this extreme situation the focus was to be able to keep the school doors open, to avoid that children would have to work and end up on the streets. Faced with all these difficulties, we decided to put all our combined forces into the procurement of new funding solutions to make the programme more resilient and be able to provide full support to all children.

Our efforts have paid off and we can start now with more positivity and new goals into the new school year. We are overly happy and a big stone has fallen off our shoulders, when we heard the good news, that we would receive funding to run the porridge feeding programme for a whole year! The children will receive a warm meal every day, filling up their tummies and making sure they will be able to learn more and focus better.

It is also very exciting because it gives us the freedom to focus on other things that have long been outstanding and very important. With the children cared for, it is now our major concern to help the school become more self-sustainable. The goal is to set up the vocation training again, help mothers to learn new skills such as sewing and to generate an income from selling the goods made during the workshop. As the sewing machines have been destroyed during the floods last year, our next step will be to buy new ones, so the classes can take place again. Another long term goal is to set up a community garden, that will provide food for the school meals and help to create financial stability by selling the surplus vegetables.

There are many things to do and the work never stops! It is still a long way to go but we are excited and positive for everything that the new school year will bring. Join us on the journey and help us to make the school as well as the whole community more resilient.

Murakaza School has been facing difficulties over the last year, which began with severe flooding, which destroyed several of the school buildings, such as the staff accommodation, and the sewing workshops, but thanks to your generosity, and with parents’ support, the school has been able to continue functioning. 

School achievements recognized by the government

The good news, which we reported in November, was government recognition that the school’s academic performance has reached a sufficently high standard to allow children to transfer into the state school system. Up until the end of 2020, the school continued with the school lunch programme – feeding 230 children every day, even giving the children double portions, to encourage parents to continue sending them to school.

The pandemic has devastated the country

School activity has taken place against the background of the pandemic, which has severely impacted on the economy. Expats and anyone with money has left the country, so with very few jobs, or income generating activities, Burundi has moved down to the World Development index.

This has forced the school to lay off some staff and can no longer continue with the school lunch programme. But the school authorities are doing everything possible to continue operating the school, because they know that if the children stop their education, they will lose a year of study, and could end up on the streets begging, possibly falling into drugs or prostitution, becoming easy prey for the networks of serious delinquents.

The school refuses to be beaten

The school staff refuse to be beaten and continues teaching. They also want to restart the sewing workshops to make masks and school uniforms for the children. Please help us support this brave school, which refuses to be broken by the circumstances: even a small amount will help them contnue.

Little By Little Campaign: your donation goes the extra mile

GlobalGiving is running the Little By Little campaign. Every donation up to $50 between March 8th till the 12th, will be matched 50% by GlobalGiving. For example, if you give $0, that's $30 that will go to the project - at no extra cost to you - to help Murakaza bulding back stronger.

I know you probably have a lot on your mind right now, but I hope you'll consider making a small gift, that would help the Murakaza School to continue their great work.

With 230 children currently attending classes, Murakaza school is gaining increasing recognition from the public. Located at the outskirts of Bujumbura, Murakaza provides education to some of the most underprivileged children of Burundi’s capital. Children learn basic literacy, maths and many more skills to enable them to integrate into the public schooling system. However, for a student to continue the educational path in other schools, negotiations with each individual school have to be made, which often is a cumbersome and time-consuming process.

Key milestones: From this term onwards Murakaza has achieved a major agreement with the ministry of education leading to a significant increase in the school’s recognition. From now on every student graduating from Murakaza can integrate into the public system. This will save time and resources that otherwise would be spent in finding a suitable school for each individual student. Continuing to provide our services, including student support as well as training for mothers will smooth the path to getting certified by the official governmental bodies in the future.