IBSF has been working with The Light Nursery and Primary School, which educates children from Nursery age to Grade 6 along the Ishahayi peninsula. Unfortunately, once the children have finished Primary schooling there are extremely limited opportunities for them to continue their education in such a remote area.
So, we asked around and found a place called the Ikaare Unity Grammar School which is the closest and most appropriate venue for the children to further their education through to JS3 level (year 9 effectively). Over the past 8 months, IBSF has been looking at the viability of this school and creating a rapport with the Principal, teachers and local village elders.
Chief Osaba in the classroom - this place need a lot of work
Anyway, we had a very successful trip to Ishahayi on Thursday, where we dropped off some books and has a look at the new "computer room" where the teachers are all learning to use the computer (we took out a new fan, some speakers and some learning software). I must say it all looks like it's going really well and the guy Lady Salami (the principal)has got teaching them how to use the computer is very good.
Ikaare kids get some new stationary
After that, we dropped in to Ikaare to pay for the labour for the concrete blocks they had been building for stage one of the new building works.
The interesting part of the visit was the appearance of a couple of the local elders, including Joseph who is the "chairman" of the unity junior grammar school (or so he says). Now, I have met all these guys in the past, they generally haven't had anything to do with what we have been discussing with Chief Osaba (the Principal). This day, however, they decided to thank us for all that we had done and promptly took me aside to discuss what was going on with the building, leaving everyone else to sit near the Chiefs' office ( I do apologise to those who were there). I guess it's just the way things are around here that they only seem keen to talk with men...
Anyway, the elders were concerned about the quality of work and the reliability of the local guys. They knew that we had been using another guy called Ben for other works in the past and knew that he did good work and asked if I could get Ben to do the work instead. Chief Osaba, on the other hand, wasn't so thrilled.
It just so happened that Ben was catching a lift back with us to Lagos on our boat so I called him over so we could all talk. I had told him in the past that I didn't really want him to be involved in Ikaare as IBSF agreed that using local people would keep the money in the village and not cause any problems. Now it was the villagers who wanted an outsider to come in... go figure
Now, I must say that the standard of construction of the first building at Ikaare is very poor (and truth be told we will probably be spending money to fix it later this year), and I would certainly be much happier handing large amounts of money to someone we can trust like Ben, but I had a strong feeling that this meant that the whole thing would cost more than originally planned - money we don't have.
Anyway, we arranged for Ben and Chief Osaba to meet on Friday to discuss what needs to be done so that Ben can come up with a quote for next week. I guess I will probably find out the good news then...
Speaking to the Chief alone, he was not over the moon with the idea, as he thought that it might get too expensive and that we might not be able to fund it all and walk away from the whole thing. I told him that we rely on proper written quotations to raise money for projects and that the piecemeal way we were currently doing it would make fund raising harder and the whole thing would probably take longer than if only one person was doing the work. Furthermore, IBSF's funding partners are all aware of Ben's good work and might be more likely to help knowing he's on board (as well as IBSF's own piece of mind). He was also worried that the elders had suggested this idea in the first place so that they might be able to chop some money from Ben while he's doing the work (which they would have not been able to do so easily with Chief Osaba running things). I agree with him on this one, but don't really see any other choice if we want a proper building to be built that will last and be completed in a shorter period of time. It's an unfortunate side to doing business in the country - someone's always trying to chop some money from somewhere
It also seems that the locals of Ikaare are starting to get a little over zealous when it comes to our involvement in the place. Chief Osaba was confronted by a few locals last week after we had dropped off some books (in black plastic bags as per usual) as they though we had brought shoes and indomie noodles and wanted their share! Poor bloke was holed up in his office and couldn't get out untill he showed everyone that his cupboard was full of junior school readers - not 2 minute noodles!!
The collapsed bit on the right is what we're trying to re-build as classrooms
