Uh oh, another charity for education in Africa, right? Think again! And listen to how our story is different. The Koumra School was founded by Beyamra Ounoumdon, a private citizen, who uses the little money he can spare from his monthly salary, and who donates the little time he can spare from his busy work week.
We are a group of seven colleagues and friends of Beyamra Ounoumdon who are determined to raise funds for the Koumra School. It's difficult to imagine how much the students are counting on us. Their school is truly their only hope for a brighter future.
How We Use the Funds?
Advance is the NGO we founded to raise funds for the Koumra School. It has no full-time employees. It is run entirely by volunteers, including those who designed and developed our website. None of the funds raised are used for travel expenses to Chad.
Paypal takes a 5% cut of each financial transaction, and the Koumra School web site's hosting costs $200 a year. All other funds raised go directly to our projects on the ground in Koumra. We pay suppliers directly.
Located in the city of Koumra, in southern Chad, the school was built for children who can't afford the area's schools.
Today, 10 years later, the Koumra School's academic results are amongst the best in the country. Nonetheless, the school struggles to survive.
We have divided our goals into various projects than can be donated to. Check them out and don't forget to raise awareness for the school by telling about it to your friends and family over the phone, camp fire, water, cooler, coffee and dinner.
Oh and of course, liking, posting, tweeting, sharing on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google, etc etc etc will help spread the news online.
Sometimes the most obvious change has the largest impact. In 2009 solar panels were donated, and the school had electricity for lights in the classrooms. The impact was spectacular! They could hold classes on rainy days when it becomes very dark as well as at night. Students do not have electricity at home so they could stay at the school to study in the evening. The solar panels are now broken, and the school is once again in the dark. It is stunning to see how it negatively impacted the students' results at the Baccalauréat exam.
In the back of the school, there is a hole in the ground. This is the restroom for 1,400 students and staff at the Koumra School! This unsafe and unhygienic situation needs to be addressed right away.
We have sent many boxes of old textbooks but the Chadian Ministry of Education provides a list of specific textbooks and schools are required to use them. Imagine never owning a book! Imagine learning history or math without your own textbook! But that is what the students face at the Koumra School. There is only one textbook for each class. Every day the teachers must write down the information from the book onto the blackboard. The students then spend precious class time copying that text into their notebooks.
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Let's make a difference today!