Congo Restoration All Girls Primary School
I am chair of the board for Congo Restoration, celebrating its 10-year anniversary in 2018. As our board of directors, our founder, and I think about our next decade, we've decided to build an all girls village school near our Congo Restoration Sewing School. We open on September 3 and here are our urgent needs:
• Chairs for our 80 students and four teachers ($12 each). TOTAL: $1,080 ... UPDATE: We have funded all the chairs!
• Tables for our students (7 each our first- and second-grade classrooms at $150 each) and teachers (one for each classroom at $150 each): TOTAL: $2,400 ... UPDATE: We have funded all the tables!
• Bathroom for the entire school (able to accommodate even once we have finished all planned grades at the school). TOTAL: $2,200 ... UPDATE: We have funded the bathrooms!!
• Fabric for the girls' uniforms (which will be made by Congo Restoration Sewing School graduates): TOTAL: $1,200 ...UPDATE: We have funded 64 of the 80 uniforms!
We will add one grade each year until we have a much-needed school with grades 1 through 12. Here's the plan:
• We will start construction in March and open the school in September 2019. UPDATE: Two classrooms are complete!
• We will open with one first-grade classroom and one second-grade classroom for total of 80 students. UPDATE: Our 80 students have been chosen!!
• We will hire local women to prepare a daily lunch for our students of rice, beans, half a banana, and water. We will have proper desks and supplies. We will pay our teachers a living wage. All of these things are unheard of in village schools in DRC. We want the students to see what school should be, opening their minds to a better future for their community. UPDATE: We have hired four new teachers, two for each classroom. A talented local carpenter is almost finished with the furniture for one classroom and will soon get to work on the second classroom.
• We hope the building of future classrooms will be funded by local Congolese business people who — upon seeing what we’ve started — will be interested in continuing the build-out of the school. We have good reason to believe this hope will become a reality.
And with that, we ask you to support the hopes and futures of the 80 children who will be in their new classroom in one year. All funds raised with this campaign — 100%! — will go directly into the Congo Restoration account and will be spent on this school. And then, the dream of an entire village to have such a school will be realized when it opens next September. We can’t wait to see that moment!
