SHUMAS SCHOOL REFURBISHMENT PROGRAMME
School buildings in some rural parts of Cameroon are in a very poor
state 
and in 2003, SHUMAS started collaborating with British
charities AidCamps International and
Building Schools for Africa to replace and equip village
classrooms in a dilapidated state.
The buildings are little more than dangerous ruins with crumbling
walls, unsafe and leaking roofs and earthen flooring. Basic school
equipment, for teachers and pupils alike, is virtually non existent.
School benches, blackboards, sometimes even chalk, are often absent
or rarely reach the remoter rural areas. Textbooks and writing
materials, as fundamental to education as teachers themselves, barely
exist. 
Add the fact that few schools
have access to proper toilets or even on-site access to water, let
alone drinking water and one begins to get some idea of the
challenges to be faced.
..pupils fight with cattle to get drinking water 1.5Km away from the campus..
- Head Teacher - Ntseimbang School
Since 2003, SHUMAS, with minimal funding and resources, has rightly focused on rebuilding, refurbishing and equipping such schools to a safe and basic operational standard. That just means a safe waterproof building with proper concrete flooring, but few other embellishments.
Later phases, always dependant on funding, address:
- toilets and sanitation
- availability of potable water
- additional classrooms to reduce class sizes and overcrowding...
- teacher facilities & storerooms
- educational equipment and materials
- teacher recruitment
...all things taken for granted in the developed world...
The odds to be overcome by SHUMAS and her partners are immense:
- rural poverty works against many local communities being able or wanting to participate and prejudices need to be overcome
- transport links to the affected areas are appalling, with roads being impassible during the rainy season
- transport is expensive and unreliable
- school attendance, taken as a free right in the developed world, has to be directly paid for by poor locals through levies
- poverty stricken families and orphans tend to miss out completely
Those children who do attend often arrive bare foot and consequently suffer from jiggers * - a very prevalent parasite in many African countries.
WHAT SHUMAS AND HER PARTNERS HAVE ACHIEVED SINCE 2003:
- 21 classrooms added or rebuilt in 8 rural schools including some
where toilet facilities have been erected. School furniture and
educational materials have been supplied at the same time.
- 9 schools in the 2 years, 2007-2008 have been repaired, rebuilt or
are nearing completion.
- around 3000 poor village children are benefiting from this work.
For rural people living on the margins existing on less than $2 per day, this humanitarian work makes a profound improvement to their lives.
Their children are better educated, have improved prospects and lead healthier lives.
WHAT WE ACHIEVED IN 2009...
After classroom building or rebuilding, the emphasis in 2009 turned
mainly to provide school sanitation and potable water.
SHUMAS completed 14 projects for segregated school toilets, also
bringing clean water to some sites for the first time. A teacher's
office was included in many schools, also another first.
At the beginning of 2010 SHUMAS had 9 more projects under construction with several scheduled to open for the 2010 school year in September. Many of these needed new or rebuilt classrooms and nearly all will have sanitation and clean water for the first time.
We still desparately need funding for many of these projects:
Although local communities provide labour and even some local
materials, finance is beyond them and anything like water pipes,
fixtures and fittings which cannot be built or made locally, has to
be procured, transported and financed by SHUMAS from donated funding.
Beyond current work, SHUMAS, together with partners 'Building Schools for Africa' and 'AidCamps International', have 25 more desparately poor rural communities who want to be selected for school assistance in 2010/2011.
As if this was not enough, many of the earlier projects still need potable water and sanitation, so during 2010 SHUMAS plans 8 water projects involving 8.5 Km of water network! This is likely to benefit as many as 45000 rural residents, either directly or indirectly.
There are full details of all these projects in the SHUMAS School Building Summary Report of December 2009 which can be downloaded in .pdf format. Click here to download.
| Before and after intervention.... | |
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SHUMAS selects communities on need but also on the ability of the
community itself to fully participate in the project. As they will
have no money available this usually means physical help in the build
process.
Just one example which is typical of many:
The school at Njinikejem was listed assistance in 2009 though it
still needed funding. However, the community made a firm commitment:
They dug foundations, made 6000 mud bricks and a building foreman
gave his time free of charge to supervise construction. Six
classrooms are needed costing around £3500 each plus a further £800
for water and sanitation. These have now been provided.
Fuli is another example where the community have lots of commitment
and energy; they just need the money!
SHUMAS and her partners, AidCamps International and Building Schools for Africa, use an integrated approach to tackling rural problems by engaging whole communities in improving their own lives - see our other pages to learn how....
Typical
Classroom, before...
The new school...
The School sign...
Handing over School
Keys
Letter of
Appreciation
Typical Toilet
block
Handover ceremony at
GBSS Kimbo
Community brick
making...