Kawtal is a small village south west of Djalingo. The word kawtal in fulfulde means reunion or meeting. Issa's dad has another house/compound in this village because it is closer to his fields. During the rainy season the family moves to Kawtal to farm and back to Djalingo during the dry season. Some of the family members stay in Kawtal year round.
Visiting Kawtal one day, we stopped by the school to take a look. There were logs on the ground for the kids to sit on, no desks or benches. Another classroom was made out of straw (the roof and walls) and had clay bricks as benches.
We decided to help and asked the director of the school to gather the members of the parents association and the children for a meeting. Two days later we held a successful meeting, discussing building benches for the school and planting trees in the school yard. We stressed the importance of the community's contribution and working together as a team. We concluded that we would provide the materials to build new benches if they would pay the carpenter to build them and we would provide 25 trees for the school yard if they built the fences to protect them from roaming animals and took responsibility for their care.
A few days later...we planted 25 Neem trees and built 38 benches! Not enough benches for all three classrooms but it is a start.
The new benches!
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