Ishahayi Beach School

I've been working with the Ishahayi Beach School Foundation out at the small seaside fishing village of Ishahayi (about an hour by boat from Lagos) for over a year now. In that time a new six classroom school building has been completed along with a toilet block (first actual sanitary facilities ever in the village).

More recently I've been spending quite a lot of time out there as IBSF is building a new well and a verandah along the from of the school to protect the kids during the wet season.

I taught the locals how to treat the water in the existing well with chlorine last year, but with the toilet block coming on line (we also pulled out two of the six toilets to make a place for the teachers to have bucket showers) we need a better supply of water - so for just over $1,000 aud you can get your own well around here!

I never like the way they carry out their building here, but there's not much I can do and all the workers are still around... the well, as it was hand dug in sand, was constructed in concrete above ground in stages, while the hole was dug underneath. The rest was up to gravity to sink the concrete lining. By the time we were at the water table (about 5m I was really feeling for the poor bloke at the bottom who'd bee lowered down by a rope. You have to remember that, apart from a couple of small generators owned by the more wealthy families, the village has no power, so there's no other way to get stuff done other than man power. Even the most simple of materials like cement and aggregate for the concrete has t be loaded into boats over on the mainland (closest decent jetty is 1/2 hr) then carried by hand (well, basket on head) to the work site.

Last year we'd had great success when an artist by the name of Eugene from Lagos had come out to tech the kids how to paint. He'd expected them to draw scenes of buses, traffic and markets like all the kids he's taught in Lagos. But most of the kids out here have never been to the city and don't know what a bus is, so they drew what they knew - coconut trees, fish and footballs (it always football!).

Anyway, Eugene couldn't believe it and fell in love with ishahayi village and was keen to come back. We managed to organise it the other day and Naz, Teresa and I headed out...

While she was back home in the States, Teresa had mentioned the school at ishahayi to her dentist who in turn hit up the local toothbrush rep for some freebies. Now that we've successfully got almost all the kids in walking distance of ishahayi (and that can be quite a way) to go to school, we're trying to get health and sanitation as a priority in the village.