The drilling of a borehole/well in the grounds of Boudoum Primary School is intended to address the problem of lack of clean drinking water on site for the school community. At the moment, girls walk to the nearest well each morning and return with buckets of water for each classroom and the head teacher's home which is close by. This water is stored in a large earthenware pot in each room. The senior girls involved miss valuable teaching time during this period and are often tired when they start their school work for the day. The provision of a "forage" (borehole) would improve energy levels, concentration, health and cleanliness of pupils, staff and the wider community. It would also ensure that the buildings themselves - classrooms and latrines - were cleaner.
Two thirds of the people who arrive at the local hospital suffer from bacterial and/or amoebic dysentery and intestinal parasites, due to drinking dirty river water. These diseases can lead to malnutrition, poor growth, poor performance in school and chronic diseases of liver and spleen. Dysentery and malaria are the biggest killers of young children in this area and every school loses many pupils every year. It has been estimated that only 5% of the population in this region has easy access to clean water.
The community as a whole would be responsible for the upkeep and maintenance of the borehole and pump through the Parent Teacher Association and by means of small monthly contributions from the parents. A maintenance committee would be formed.
There is an air of organisation and calm about Boudoum School which seems to be lacking in most other schools. The head teacher is so highly thought of that when the Minister of Education tried to send him to another school, the parents rose up in arms and were allowed to keep him. He is a decent, honest, intelligent man. The villagers work well for the good of their community and the school and have built three new classrooms themselves, one of them during the last two years. In May 2009 they launched their new Village Development Committee, formed specifically to meet the needs of the school. With the help of donations from former pupils who now live and work in the more prosperous south, a sizeable sum of money towards a borehole was raised and villagers were talking of making a start on the manual work on the well/borehole site themselves. Staff and parents have been extremely cooperative with an educational development project led by Voluntary Service Overseas over the last two years and, working together with an international volunteer and a national volunteer, have increased the school roll by 32% to 500 pupils, with 47% more girls attending. This, of course, increases the need for clean water on site. This school also produces the best exam results of all four primary schools in the area. The volunteers have high hopes for Boudoum School and the success of its pupils, and your help towards providing clean water will contribute towards that success.
a queue of buckets during the dry season when the most shallow wells have dried up,
a girl fetching water from a dried-up river bed,
a functioning borehole,
and an irresistible photo of the head teacher's little boy getting a drink in a classroom.
