Photo: Our teachers are so happy with their new bicycles which will allow them to get to school more reliably. For most of them, it is their first time to have their own transportation.
We are happy to report that the 25 bicycles and 2 motorcycles we ordered last month have arrived. The bicycles will help our teachers serve the children more efficiently because they will be able to reach our schools quickly — they previously had to walk 1-4 miles from their homes to our schools, while others had to take cramped mini-buses that provided unreliable service. The bicycles will also boost the morale of our teachers, enable them to arrive at school on time, and will make the children happy to see their beloved teachers utilizing much easier transportation, no longer struggling by walking such a long way. We gave the two motorcycles to the heads of departments at two of our schools. With your support and generous contributions from our donors, we hope to purchase 15 more bicycles to give our support staff and medical staff more ease in their transportation as well.
In other good news, our high school has been registered to be fully accredited. The only step left in the process is to receive a center number after we complete the next phase of construction to bring our school up to date to receive full accreditation. The center number will give our high school the official status to allow students to take their national exams on the school premises. Our full accreditation will also enable us to enroll more paying students (which will allow us to offer more scholarships), give our students confidence that our school will be successful, enable us to save money that would be spent by taking candidate students to other schools for their national exams, and our teachers will be able to go through training to learn how to give the national exams, which will give our school more positive exposure. It will also greatly help establish the children’s future as they will be able to study in a registered and licensed school, thus giving them peace of mind as they pursue their studies.
Photo inset: (Top-left): These teachers are thankful for their new bikes which will help get them to school quickly & safely. (Top-right): Students at our high school are excited about the progress of our school towards accreditation. (Bottom-left): Students at our high school are grateful for the opportunity to have a quality education. (Bottom-right): The new water tower on our main campus is now completed & provides our main house bathrooms with running water.
Thanks to your support, we were able to recently complete phase one on our path to get our school fully accredited. We built two separate bathrooms to ensure the boys’ and girls’ privacy, and we payed the license fee and all of the administrative costs in full. Next, with recently provided funds, we will complete phase two. We will equip the science lab with all of the necessary science apparatuses, chemicals, solutions, shelves, tables, and chairs, and construct a new building which will house the science lab, the school library, the computer lab with 30 computers, and the examination hall. With your generous contributions, we now hope to raise $60,000 to build two well-furnished dormitories for the boys and girls separate living arrangements, each accommodating 100 students. We have a goal of accommodating 200 paying students in full — 100 girls and 100 boys.
In other news, the installation of the new plumbing system and the new water tower has been completed and is working very well. We installed a motor pump to route the water from the water well source to the main tank, to the orphan home, to the bathrooms, all throughout the campus, as well as to the medical center, the school, and to the people in our local community through public safe water spigots at the entrance to our campus. The plumbing system has now enabled us to have running water with taps on the entire campus as well as connecting the water to the main house so that we can have bathrooms with running water. The new plumbing will bless our children as they will now have access to clean water in our orphan home and at school, to more easily wash their hands after visiting the toilets, thus improving their hand-washing and sanitation.
We also recently installed a standby generator in the event that we have problems with our solar power, especially when there is no adequate sunshine to power the solar power system. The standby generator is powerful enough to pump all of the water needed on campus, to provide enough power to light up the whole campus, and to support all of the electricity needed on campus as well.
We look forward to reporting back about our progress in getting our school fully accredited, and purchasing more bicycles. We are thankful for your generous support which makes these improvements possible, blessing the lives of our students and teachers.
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