News Update -January 2008
Despite the Christmas/New Year holidays, work on the Australian Primary School at Nogwe is bounding along. The five double toilets for the children were the first priority...followed by Staff Office....and the teachers' toilets
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Some local houses |
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More toilet pits |
The Australian Primary School at Nogwe
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| Some of the houses near the proposed
school project |
Mr Rabson, Secretary of the Tithandize
Orphan Care Centre visiting thhe project site.Rabson
standing in front of the project site |
project site view |
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| project site view |
A typical local house at Nogwe |
Local community inspect the project
site |
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| community on the site |
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Community meets onsite ahead, of
project work beginning |
The new school at Nogwe will cater for some 400 children
aged between 4 and 9 years old...some of them with parents,some
AIDS orphans living with grandparents, some orphans in child-headed
households and other vulnerable children with single parents
etc. None are presently capable of walking very long distances
and able to cope with the various hazards enroute....child
traffickers, roads, bridges,rivers, flood areas. Although
children are expected to walk up to 2 kilometres to school,
the children in the Nogwe area are currently faced with
walking up to 17 kilometres if they want to go to school.
In this new project, and in an area where up to 75% of
the local population are illiterate,The Australian AIDS
Fund Inc will be working with the Tithandize Orphan Care
Centre, headed by Zex Thambo, and headquartered at Ndirande.
The Australian AIDS Fund has already partnered Mr Thambo's
community-based organisation in vital projects at Ndirande.
Presently, parents and others who send children to distant
schools face the following danger:
- Children vanishing on the way to or from school,taken
by child traffickers
- Children washed away...drowned by swelling water rivers
- High rate of school dropouts caused by early marriages,pregnancies,child
labours in houses in towns or in tobacco farms and tea
estates, drug abuses,etc
- Hunger and malnutrition
- Punishments due to late arrival at school because of
far distance travel
- Sicknesses on the way to or from school as a result
of being tired, hungry ,thirsty,or sunburn.
ABOUT NOGWE /SHAIBU VILLAGES
This is one of the areas where the Tithandize Orphan Care
Centre is serving the orphans, people infected by AIDS/HIV,and
the wider vulnerable community etc
This area is one of the areas where people live primitively,
with no easy access to local education facilities, medical,developmental
facilities ,no secondary school and where HIV/AIDS information
has been very scarce, resulting in high rates of HIV infection.
EXISTING SCHOOLS AND HOW FAR…..FROM SHAIBU / NOGWE
- Mthuruwe…………..17 KM
- Pambachulu…………15 KM
- Nkanda………………20
KM
- Kolokoti……………..10 KM
- Kambenje……………20 KM
The new school will be known as The Australian Primary
School - Nogwe
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