School Days

I can't imagine going to school as a child here in Sudan. Take a moment and think back to elementary school and all the memories that you have about those great years. Things that I remember are things like:
- book reading contests
- the reptiles and other animals that we had in our classroom that we had to feed and take care of
- reccess and playing on the jungle gym
- field trips to the zoo
- sitting in those little wooden desks with one drawer to keep all your pencils and paper in


As I think of all these memories different feelings, smells and thoughts come back to me and it was a sweet fond time of life. One with very little worries and where you are constantly learning and discovering new things. I couldn't help but be reminded of all these blessings as I visited 9 of the schools that we are supporting. This area is a new area that we have never worked in before. Right now the only thing that we are doing in the area is education so it's kind of exciting for me. The last organization supporting these schools lacked the capacity to keep up with it all. So they asked us to step in and take over. Classes in the town of Tulus began at the beginning of July and because of my absense we have been able to start the rehabilitation of the classrooms that needed to be done. So I was shocked at the horrible conditions that the children have to sit through just to get basic education. Even at it's best with the schools supported by us and Unicef, they sit on mats on the floor and have to share one text book for every four kids. There are no libraries, no animals to care for and learn about, no field trip and no jungle gyms to play on. We are doing our best to keep up the needs but all the resources are stretched to the max. Even when we request supplies and books from Unicef we only get about 1/2 of what we need. The teachers that are working in the school often have not been paid for months. This is the job of the government. If we as NGO's start paying the teachers what is going to happen when we leave? So we have to push the government to be responsible to pay their teachers and support the education their children are receiving. But the teachers are under trained and under paid. Often the teachers have only a few years more education than the students that they are teaching. We are working with Unicef to set up trainings for the teachers to help improve the quality of education but it's a struggle.

I don't want to be a downer but it is a huge challenge. There are good things happening too. I was amazed at how supportive the Parent Teacher organizations are to the school. Because of our delay they have done their best to keep the schools running and their children out of the elements so they can focus on their studies. So there are good things happening too but there is a lot of work to be done. I guess that's what keeps me in a job.