Curious Village Elders

The village of Kanampio has waited for a school for a long time. Depending on who you ask, the length of time they have been waiting will differ. But everyone is in agreement that it has been a long time. When Kidspire first met with the Department of Education to request a list of the priority areas where a lack of schools was resulting in high rates of out-of-school children, Kanampio was near the top of the list. And during our early visits to the region, it was easy to see why. The area was remote and the distance between homes was significant. You can read more about our process of establishing the school here.

Despite the visible challenges that we could see we would face in establishing a school in this region, it was consistently apparent to us that the village elders and community leadership really wanted a school for their children. Two preceding generations had missed out on the opportunity to attend school and literacy rates were low. The community was fully prepared to embrace Kidspire as we set out to establish a new school for the hundreds of children in the area.

As construction commenced, the community kept showing up. They would walk for miles to catch a glimpse of the structures going up. “We couldn’t believe it unless it we could see it” they would tell us. First the roads system, then the fencing, followed by the well (they all call it a borehole) and the plumbing, then the solar panels, and finally the structures - 4 classrooms, student toilets, a kitchen, kitchen storage, laundry, teacher accommodations, and guest accommodations. On a daily basis, various members of the community were there to observe the progress.

But our favorite moment of all came as we were setting up one of the classrooms after construction had completed. A village elder peered in through the door, unable to believe his eyes - and incapable of containing his excitement. The day he had waited for had finally arrived. Kanampio Village has a school.