Refurbishing Schools
Our very first project was to repair a reading room in school number 9 in Rushan. This was a trial project to see how things would work with our partner.
Restoring the reading room in School Number 9
The reading room in School Number 9 had been destroyed due to lack of funds and students did not have a place in the school where they could study outside of class. The before and after pictures of the room are shown below.
In Tajikistan, we work with our partner Ravshandilon, a Public Organization. All work on the ground is done by Ravshandilon or by people Ravshandilon engages.
Our work in Tajikistan has been centered around the following activities.
After the successful completion of this project, we did two more projects with this school.
The windows in the school were broken and due to cold winters starting in October, students were having a hard time staying warm while in school. They had to keep their warm outside clothes on, in class and wear gloves. We collaborated with Ravshandilon, our partner in Tajikistan to fund the purchase and installation of new windows in this entire school. We paid half the costs of the project, while the local government paid for the other half.
The furniture in the school for students and teachers had not been replaced for a very long time. See the pictures of the condition of the furniture at the school. We agreed to replace all of the furniture during the school break so that students would have new furniture which would be more conducive to learning for the students and easier for the teachers to teach.
We entered into an understanding with the community that if they would create a proper septic field for a toilet, we would install the toilet building and we would extend electricity to the whole school from the town and wire the school so that lighting was available. We also fixed the walls and the floor of the school so that it was no longer muddy and we used some of the usable old furniture from School No 9 to this school so the students would not have to sit on the floor.
The entire project cost about $5,600 of which $1,155 came locally and the rest was provided by the Foundation.
This model of working with the community and fixing schools worked so well that we started doing this in multiple small villages along the Bartang river valley each year. We have done this in:
Midenveth School in Roshtkala
Ishkasim School No 22 which was damaged by an earthquake
Ravmed
Baghu Village
Roshorv
