Satellite School

Tuesday 8th April

The visitors from LinkEthiopia arrived yesterday en masse. Meleshew organised transport to take us to visit a school they have been supporting. Kebele 16 – nothing more that a few mud huts a few years ago, is now a developing elementary school catering for grades 1 – 8.


Satellite School

The school has enough classrooms now but not enough furniture. After totally disrupting the school and all the lessons for about an hour, we walked about 30 minutes further into the countryside to visit a satellite school that LE have recently taken on. Catering for children from Grades 1 – 4, it is no longer classified as an ABE school because it has 4 classrooms – that means the local education authority will fund the teachers.


Open Plan Classroom

There are no toilets and no drinking water. I asked the Director about this and he took me to a mucky looking water hole next to which a group of local men were in the process of sinking a well. A project also being funded by LE who are providing the cost of the materials and a fee for the supervisor. Unfortunately, we had arrived at a difficult moment since they had decided this well was not going to be viable because it had already collapsed at a strategic point. They will begin again further away.


Digging the Well

As we stood around discussing it, the school bell went and all the children ran down to the water hole to drink. Shortly after, the cows arrived for their drink – at the same place! Not surprising that children (like Mohammed – see previous blog) are liable to get water borne diseases.


Water Hole


For Children and Cows

Things are slowly and sustainably improving for this community thanks to the work of Link Ethiopia. The countryside around is beautiful, water might not be plentiful but it is regularly available.

Social life has improved this week with the arrival of VSO visitors, one from Addis and one from Rwanda. Great, not only to have company but the chance to talk about the work. One of my visitors has been visiting projects around Ethiopia to see what is happening and was very impressed with the quantity and quality of work going on in Gonder so I indulged myself with a little pat on the back!