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.

Project Update - April 21, 2010

Today was the day before the first day of school after vacation, and the bulk of the new furniture was delivered to the school. As we had ordered simple hand-made furniture from a local artisan, as opposed to factory-made furniture from a corporation, not all the furniture was made in time. We expect the remainder to be delivered within a month.

Long lines snaked around the campus to move the old furniture

The olf furniture was piled into this tractor-tailer

Of course the first task was to take all the broken desks and chairs and haul them to the dump. The boys of the school were commandeered, and formed long lines snaking through the school, passing the old furniture hand to hand to a tractor-trailer, which hauled everything off. It took five trips.

Next came the new furniture, and the entire process was reversed.

It took five loads to get rid of the destroyed desks and chairs

The whole thing took all morning and into the afternoon, including the wait between hauls to the municipal dump. The school’s Parents’ Association provided refreshments for the boys, and the Principal used the school address system to play Tamil movie hits; and so the occasion turned quite festive.

Chairs ready to be taken to their classrooms

So now ALMOST all the students have desks in their classrooms, and chairs to sit on.

A load of new chairs

Project Update - September 1, 2010

We have received a request for supplementary funds, about $450, from our project-site school in Vantharumoolai, to repair a quantity of broken chairs and desks, separate for our previous project at the school. By supplementing the furniture we already repaired and/or purchased, the school will finally have all the desks and chairs it needs for each student. Again, it’s a matter of “if we don’t do it, no one will,” even more so because the government, which is running a large deficit, has cut education funding island-wide, again. Plus, I hate leaving a project site incomplete. So I have approved the funds, and am waiting for the money to be transferred from the US. I authorized repairs to be started, which will take another two weeks further to finish. THEN we can leave Vantharumoolai knowing that the school has its full complement of furniture.

Project Update - October, 2010

Thanks to a last minute, but VERY generous donation from Cory at Salon Fixer, we are now able to fund the remainder of this project. In fact, when Cory told me he would be sending us the money, I asked our project partner, Balan, to notify the furniture shop and get the work started. That was three weeks ago, and I'm happy to say that the last of the repairs have been made, and the furniture is delivered.

Thank you so much Cory!