Nigeria Education Project
Elaine Chagnon
Elaine retired after 35 years as a special education and consulting teacher for the Granby Public Schools and the Capital Region Education Council. She is the Project Director and Education Consultant for the African Education Project located in Northern Nigeria. She has made at least 10 trips to Nigeria as the project is helping to build not only schools, but the infra structure to support them such as wells, safety walls, and play ground equipment. Outside of work, she is interested in traveling with her family, horseback riding, and spoiling her 3 grandchildren. In Nigeria, she has become known by her nickname of Mama Grace.
As a side note, Elaine has spoken to the Canton Interact Club as they are learning how organizations function. Because of their enthusiasm and interest, two Interact members will be joining the African Education Project as Junior Board Members.
Because of Covid, this has been the most difficult two year stretch.
Covid exacerbated already existing problems. At one point the inflation rate was up to 32%. It is now down to 17% but this has, as you might expect, created havoc. Unemployment rate is around 39% Kidnappings for ransom has become a business. In spite of all this, we have been able to make some progress.
The farther north you go, the more conservative the Muslim Community is. In the far north, about 43% of girls do not go to school. 30% of those in school are in religious schools that focus on the memorization of the Koran without reading, writing, or math education.
In spite of the challenges, we have been able to accomplish a lot. Dust is a huge problem here and covers everything, including computers. We were able to use these blocks to dramatically reduce the dust. The picture on the left is there two story examination building. The bottom floor has the computer lab, library, teacher rooms, and administrative offices.
Compulsory education is only through grade 6. High school education is hard to find so a dormitory facility is a requirement. The picture shows the boys and girls dormitory under construction with kitchen facilities in the middle. With Covid, the cost of construction has gone way up and materials hard to find. They made the decision to go ahead and build the basic foundational structures of both dormitories. This put us in the lurch, but a donor has come forward who will help fund the completion of the project.
A previous project constructed a building at this school, but the rest of the building were in very poor shape. Their second project was to help replace the dilapidated classroom block shown in the photo. The desks are very heavy so that they are hard to steal and sized to the grade that they are placed in.
The GIS building will take about $55K to finish.
The buildings at the Godogodo school are in such bad shape that they cannot be rehabbed and will need to be new construction.
It has been a rough two years as we have not been able to do any in-person fund raising and this has impacted our ability to meet these needs. Your continued support means so much to them and so much to us Thank You!
