Greetings from Maima, Sierra Leone! I am pleased to bring you the following update. Thank you for your ongoing support.
PDIA
-the school received an annual visit from a local clinic offering deworming and cervical cancer vaccinations for all staff and students at the school.
-we received a donation of base-10 blocks from a school in Winnipeg that Marty was able to transport with him when he came. I completed some training with the primary teachers for how to use them with their students.
-I supported the nursery teachers in creating a timetable in order to break the teaching day into manageable chunks for the students. They have been excited to read the books I brought to their students and to try out some new games and songs I taught them in their classes.
PDC
-When I first arrived at the orphanage, the girls held a meeting with me to thank SLAM for its support and to present a current list of needs and wants should the funding become available. One concern was about the safety of students sleeping on the top bunks as their beds did not have any railings. Thanks to a donation, we worked with a carpenter this week to cut and install boards on all the bunk beds in the boys’ and girls’ dormitory.
New! Flexigester
-This week Edward (former PDC child who is volunteering as our agricultural expert), Mr. Fillie (the headmaster) and a plumber met with us to discuss the placement of an anaerobic digester system SLAM acquired called the Flexigester. This will help to divert and convert sewage and other organic waste from the orphanage into a biofertilizer that can be used on the school garden. The biogas that is produced from the reaction can also be collected and used as an alternative fuel source for cooking besides firewood and charcoal.
-We have dug the trench and sourced the supplies we need to begin installation next week. We have also made contact with a school in Sierra Leone that successfully installed the system ten years ago so that we can learn from their experience.
Tec Voc Training
With all the grasses cleared from the land, we started involving all the children at PDC with the next steps of our gardening project:
-collecting all the plastic waste from the garden area and sorting it out from the orphanage’s kitchen waste pile to use the remaining decomposed scraps as compost for planting our seeds.
-starting a seed nursery for plants that cannot be directly sowed in the garden (tomatoes, peppers, etc.)
-preparing the beds for planting by digging and mounding the earth into separate garden plots.
The children have been divided into five groups and each group will be responsible for the maintenance of their own section of the garden. Planting will begin next week.
Edward (a former PDC child) loaned us a machine in order to chop the grasses that were cleared from the garden. This will be added to our compost pits and used as mulch in the garden.
We’ve had to be cautious with the clearing of the land because of snakes living in the area. A viper was captured two weeks ago and this past week a python was killed. The python turned into a nice treat over rice at lunch time!
We have all the tailoring supplies and hope to start training this week. There are a couple of items that had to be ordered for soap-making but we believe they will also arrive this week. I will provide another update in a week’s time!