School renovation for 1,700 children in Nigeria

What began with a vague idea at the end of 2021 was structurally implemented in 2022/2023 and put into production in October 2023: Clean drinking water for Ebonyi State.
We have regularly reported on this challenging and extensive undertaking, so here is a brief review after one year of operation.

1. Planning, construction and installation: Due to the time constraints, the planning was carried out within 8 weeks. That was very ambitious, as we had to design a large photovoltaic system, the bottling hall and create a detailed schedule and cost plan. As it turned out later, however, that was the easiest part of the project. Apart from the technical installation of the PV system, things mostly went smoothly.
   
   
2. Testing and start of operations: The first challenges came up during the test phase and the start of production. Difficulties in finding staff, technical problems with the PV system due to a lack of specialist knowledge on site, procurement of materials, customer acquisition. With hard work, luck and skill, we were able to start production in October 2023.
   
   
3. Production October 2023 to March 2024: By far the most difficult phase with new findings almost every day, enormous effort but also often frayed nerves. Bad packaging material, price issues with the water union, rising inflation with high diesel prices for the trucks, truck accidents, technical defects in the trucks due to bad roads, demands from staff for more money (even though we pay better than other companies), blackmail during delivery, lack of transport capacity.
   We were sometimes at a loss as to whether we should expand or reduce production. We decided to buy more trucks to keep production and sales at a high level. But the situation in February/March was borderline.
   
   
4. Production April to September 2024: Although the water was literally "snatched out of our hands" during the dry season, we were happy when the rainy season came, and the production volume could be reduced in order to "take a breather" and work on structural issues.

Conclusion: We paid the price for our mistakes and imagined many things to be simpler, but we were able to even exceed our goal of producing three million liters of drinking water. In the end, we produced 3.65 million liters of clean water.
We gave 15% of this volume away to poor families and sold 85% to the mini traders at a fair price. The annual operating costs are around USD 66,000.

We are proud and grateful for the result and hope that we can continue to make many people happy at this level in the years to come.

Many thanks and great recognition to the team in Nigeria and to all of you as our donors who made this possible.

Pastor Richard Awah set up a small school in some rooms of his Holyrock Mountain of Light Church two years ago.

The vision is to make quality education accessible to children in the area. The aim is to work with like-minded individuals and/or organizations to reduce illiteracy and poor educational basis in the Afikpo community by providing quality education at low cost to the parents.

Richard is one of HUMAN-Stiftung's project partner in the renovation of the U-Block - which HUMAN-Stiftung funded - of the Amuro/Mgbom public school. During this project he learned why some parents do not want their children to attend large public schools.

The Amuro/Mgbom school accommodates 1,700 schoolchildren and employs more than 80 teachers. Despite the infrastructure improved by our project, such large schools also have limitations and deficiencies. However, there is no alternative to this school, simply because of the number of children that can be taught there.

As our experience in India shows, it is often difficult to keep the infrastructure in good condition in public schools over the long term. School management is not always “optimal”, teachers are often busy with personal matters and their motivation is sometimes low. Due to the very poor economic situation in the rural areas of these countries, teachers are more concerned with money (and thus a reasonably bearable life) than with carrying out their teaching duties. The safety of all children in these large schools is not always guaranteed because the entire school grounds cannot be overlooked, and access is possible from anywhere. Many children leave public schools without a qualification.

The Morning Starlight School was founded to provide children in poverty with a better basic education. The HUMAN-Stiftung (Foundation) has agreed to support the Morning Starlight School by covering the teachers’ salaries and, over time, carrying out smaller infrastructure measures, such as school equipment, building a playground, etc.

Currently, around 40 children attend the school, which will not grow much. There are Nursery groups (preschool) and five classes with the goal of expanding the school to 6th grade. The number of children per class is deliberately kept very small and allows for intensive teaching and targeted support. In the next five years, we will see how the Morning Starlight School concept develops.

We wish Pastor Richard and his team of teachers all the best and are happy for the children who can attend this school.

We will not completely give up on the renovation project of the public Amuro/Mgbom school, however, as the government is known to not invest anything in infrastructure and the children suffer as a result. Great progress has already been made through the renovation of the U-Block, the construction of a water supply and the two toilet blocks. Our mid-term goal is to renovate at least one further building.