For years, the school has been struggling with the problem of overcrowded classrooms due to the constantly growing number of students. It was taught outside under trees, in the material store and in two more than dilapidated classrooms.
Almost 50 children speaking more than four different African languages (Damara, Herero, Ovambo or Nama) in a small, crowded room, teaching anything was almost impossible. Therefore it was overdue to build new classrooms. At the beginning of 2022, this became really possible for us, also thanks to the support of Fly&Help – a foundation committed to the worldwide construction of educational institutions.
But building three classrooms with a storeroom in Namibia was not as easy as it might sound. In January 2022 we will be on site for six weeks for negotiations and planning discussions for our project. Our concern is that women and men from Kalkfeld should do the work and earn the wages. It was more than difficult to find a building contractor who shares this socio-romantic idea with us and does not just come to the school with his construction crew. But shortly before departure in March 2022 we were able to sign the contract with the wonderful Mister Rüdiger Reichstein.
Who then started building the classrooms in April with his foreman Mister Harry and the workers from Kalkfeld. When we returned for our second work stay in May 2022, there was an almost finished building in front of us, which made us and the school infinitely happy. But what was even nicer than the building itself was seeing the workers from Kalkfeld again and talking to everyone. Most of them went to school there themselves and are now sending their own children to the primary school. Now to have been a part of the building project at the school makes everyone so immensely proud and happy.