ABDF

The students have to use this stairwell to get to class.

Vantharumoolai (Van-TAH-roo-moo-lie) is a village about 18 miles north of Batticaloa, site of last year’s computer lab.. The town is mostly made up of rice farmers, a handful of small shopkeepers and craftsmen (mechanics and such), and a few employees of Eastern University, which is some 5 miles south. The school at Vatharumoolai serves the entire village, starting with kindergarten.

Yes, these are classrooms. The entire school seems barely built.

The school was used to house refugees fleeing from the 2007 military offensive in the east. The place took quite a beating, physically, and neither the government nor the organizations caring for the refugees has offered to make any repairs or replace destroyed property. This has left the school with a whole list of repair and replacement needed just to bring the place up to pre-2007 status, which to be honest, wasn’t at that high of a level to begin with.

Perhaps most vital is the replacing of destroy chairs and desks. The school is littered with piles of broken school furniture that is beyond repair. The total comes to about 100 destroyed chairs and 150 demolished desks. With a total student population of about 1,500, and an average class size of 40 students, this means that some students have to sit on the concrete floor during class time.

This is about as good as it gets at Vatharomoolai. This is what the chair/desk set looks like.

A chair costs 300 rupees and a desk 600, for a total of 120,000 rupees for everything, or just under $1,100. There will be an added, albeit small, cost for transporting of the new furniture, and hauling the old away.

Education is the surest way to ensure the development of a country. However, without the basic infrastructure a school needs, delivering a meaningful education to the kids becomes that much more difficult. Desks and chairs are one of the most basic necessities. ABDF is very eager too assist with this project.

One of many piles of unusable classroom furniture.

These piles are tucked around all over campus. This pile is actually INSIDE a classroom.

Another pile of wasted resources.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 29th, 2009 at 8:04 pm and is filed under Factsheets, Proposed. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.