llpoori School – progress is tremendous!

Ilpoori School

We first started working with this school in 2016 when they had six grades in three classrooms with a blackboard at either end for the different classes, and the kindergarten was housed in a leaky mud structure. Three teachers each shared a 3m x 3m tin building with no windows and a mud floor. We struggled to get support from the parents in the early days in this very rural location.

Fast forward to now, and following our belief in the amazing teaching staff—many of whom are still there—and following our investment, the government has built more classes, another sponsor has contributed too, and the parents have slowly, over time, built another one.

We provided two teachers’ houses with inside washing facilities, the first in the area, and the local government has built three more. The community has also built some temporary tin structures.

The school now has running water and has received a donation of two superb toilet blocks. When we started, the children collected water from the animal watering hole to drink. We installed gutters to the roofs and 10,000-litre tanks to store it in and provide much cleaner drinking water. The school is in desperate need of a library and books to help their children reach the necessary standard to move on from this location to senior high schools.

The headmaster has saved every building material that has not been used in previous projects, and the parents have funded the building of foundations to build walls to infill between these two buildings. The pile of stones and rocks that are to form the floor slab has been collected by hand from far and wide by the children.

The parents have been fundraising to build the walls with the aim of saving for a few more years to finish the building. Thanks to the amazing generosity of one of our existing child sponsors, Samantha Grayson, they won’t have to wait. Once the parents have built the walls and cast the floor, Sam’s donation will pay for the windows, doors, roof, ceiling, and internal plastering.

We will hopefully then arrange for volunteers to paint it. All that will then be required in due course is solar lighting, shelves, and books.

Thank you so much. The staff at this school, like the others, sacrifice so much and work so hard. Their dedication and hard work have also transformed the community and their approach to education.