March 27, 2014

Saturday in Bariga

This is a late post that should have come up on Monday, but I was kinda out of it and didn't post anything. But it's better late than never, right?

On Saturday morning, I woke up earlier than I like (since it's weekend) but it was for a good cause. At my church (The Waterbrook), there's a periodic series of classes called Cafe Rouge. It's meant to give you a deeper insight into God's word, build you up spiritually, connect with other church members, and give back to the community. I've been in 2 cycles, and in the first one we helped raise money for a local school in VI. For the second one, we decided to help out the Bethesda Child Support Agency, which is aimed at securing educational opportunities for children in disadvantaged families/communities.

Part of the group contacted the agency and inquired about what needs they had, and it was decided that we would raise money to build a borehole at one of the agency's schools, located in Bariga. I wasn't part of the group that went to visit the school beforehand, but we were shown pictures to help us with the fundraising. Long story short, the project started in November/December and last week Saturday, we were invited to commission the borehole.

So I woke up early, Cakes decided to come along so he could run errands afterwards. We headed to our church office, and we all drove in a convoy to the school. I've been to villages before, and I'm not sure I can even call Bariga a village, but the school's surroundings were a veritable disaster. I was in shock. I don't want to talk too much, so I will just share pictures I took with my phone.





This just makes me sick

Cafe Rouge group
Can't remember her name. Might be Ijeoma - she works with Bethesda

The engineer who made sure the borehole was put together properly
Pat of the school yard. The grass is cut every 2 weeks. At the right corner is the school toilet
This is the school. As in, just the 2 containers. 
Desks inside one trailer
Teacher's desk




At the end of the day, I thank God that we were able to raise the money for the borehole. The children and the community now have access to clean, filtered water and it was by God's grace and people's generosity. If you want to contact them, visit their website here or this link here.

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6 comments:

  1. That's lovely! Well done.. I love the idea of Cafe Rouge..

    I work in Education and I know what you mean by the deplorable conditions of some schools! The more support there is the better xx

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  2. Sigh... There are many schools like this in Lagos. Many. Well done though. May God bless you guys.

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  3. As bad as this school looks, it is because of this support school that some children will not go to public schools, which are worse than this.

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  4. Why was this kind of school approved? Two containers called a school? Really?
    It should have at least been an after school unit for extra lessons or something....

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    1. Because there's nothing else available in that community. There are I think 300 school age children there, and only 25 can be admitted at a time in this school. The Bethesda agency tries to get some of the other children sent to other schools on a scholarship basis.

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