Nqiningana School

 One of my favorite places in Nqiningana is the junior secondary school located down the hill from my house. The children are always so happy to see us and the school administration is strong and eager to work together. This year we are working to turn their field into a working vegetable garden which will feed the children through the school lunch program. It will also be a source of income as they can sell excess produce and purchase school supplies with the funds. Right now the school is barren of trees, any that were planted were eaten by the many baby goats who easily slip through the holes in the fencing. This means that there are high winds, lots of dust flying around and soil erosion.

We have also pointed out a project which compliments our existing project and that is getting the rain water harvesting system back up and running. The current system has fallen into disrepair and many parts look as through they were not set up properly in the first place, making the system not very user friendly. For example the collection tank was built directly on the ground meaning that you cannot put a bucket under to fill with water. Also, the tap was squished into the wall so it was barely accessible! We are working together to move the tank and improve the system. The collection tank is not shown in the picture below, if I remember I will take a photo so you can see before and after.

Main school building, notice how barren the landscape is. Notice also
that there are no toys or playground equipment to entertain the youth. 

This is the building used for the school lunch program, there are many areas of
opportunity in terms of boosting the materials they are using and
improving hygiene. Here I am speaking with one of the teachers,
discussing the needs of the school. 

Site of the future school garden. Poor fencing meant that the garden that
was here was eaten entirely by the goats. We are working
together to improve the fence and build a strong garden.

Cute as they may be (my oh my they are cute), these baby goats also
eat our garden, so we are working together to patch the holes and build a new fence.

So as you can see this is an exciting project! Thank you to the many people who have made a donation to this project, big and small! If you want to get involved you can make a donation using Paypal (thembaproject@gmail.com) or donate using canadahelps.org

Thank you to everyone!