Projects - Njoren Staff Quarters - Part 1
Dear Supporters of The Bansang Swiss Project, It is a pleasure to report back to you the amazing progress which has been made in the last couple of weeks with our first project: the construction of well needed Teaching Staff Quarters in the school grounds of Njoren. As mentioned on our website, the teacher accomodation in the school was extremely precarious. Absolutely no room for female teachers either. The lack of accomodation meant a shortage of teachers as the village is located at 8km away from the main road -therefore impossible to get there on a daily basis. The roads are really bad therefore teachers have to stay on site. “No accommodation available = no teachers”.
Originally small and hardly ventilated, three brave teachers were sharing a single bed, living in these difficult conditions in order to guarantee quality education to the local children. Offering the teachers better living conditions seemed to us to be a crucial factor in supporting the development of Bansang’s Educational infrastructure, leading us to initiate the project of building new living quarters, with the precious moral support of our Local Coordinator Mr. Yahya Faal and the Contractor Mr. Haruna, as well as the consultancy of the government Construction Monitor Mr.Jarju, the Alkalis (community leaders) and most of all, the precious support from the volunteers of the local community of Njoren. This series of blog posts around this project will show the progress made by the local community and developers who are building the new living quarters under the competent and resourceful supervision of Yahya Faal, Head Master of Niamina Upper and Senior Secondary School and our local coordinator of The Bansang Swiss project activities. The works on the new structure started in February, as we stepped in to complete the building (originally started off by the community alone) making it stronger and more sturdy. Our target was to complete the building ahead of the rainy season, heavy torrential rains which regularly put a tremendous strain on infrastructure across the country.
With the building being in the finishing stages currently, we look forward to sharing more pictures and anecdotes of the construction process in due course! Stay Tuned! The Bansang Swiss Project Team
