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Lastest Update Dear COW team, Greetings to all of you! I am sorry for failing to get back to you by Monday /Tuesday, as I had promised in my last email. As some of you may know, our people here have very serious systemic/bureaucratic problems, which make things go very slowly. I won’t go into those details for now… Overall, things are very promising so far! Yesterday, I met with Bor County Commissioner, Jok Aring about our project and our need for exemption from customs and other kinds of border restrictions. He agreed but told me the state policy would require that order the materials first, send him (Jok Aring) the complete details, such as line item description, quantity, etc. He would then talk to the finance department to exempt the materials. This policy was put in place for fear that exemption privilege might be abused and used to transport materials for commercial purposes. With that regards, I think we are set. When I met with Philip Agony last week, he gave me a letter from Jale payam leadership, requesting that their school be a secondary instead of a primary. Although I haven’t yet been able to meet with all payam leaderships, there is a general feeling that these schools need to be Secondary. Jok Aring, for example, is very adamant about that idea, and he said he would push for it in the Bor community meeting, which has been scheduled for 12/28. I am personally beginning to realize that it would be a good idea to build secondary schools in all the payams because of the following reasons: a) One primary school for a payam would not have a great impact, as they would be over-crowded, causing lots of issues. For example, which child would enroll and which ones would be barred. What criteria would be used for selecting students, etc. b) Location: even if a school is located at the center of a payam, children who live on the outskirts would be totally disadvantaged, whereas for secondary school-aged children, it is possible to bear with the walking distances. c) Although the quality of primary schools are very poor here in Bor, at least primary school-aged children have a place to go—a place to call a school—whereas children who have completed primary schools either have to go to Kenya /Uganda or drop out completely. Also, without a secondary school that is locally available, many primary school-aged children are not motivated as there is nothing better to look up to; that is, there is not a sense of hope. d) The cost of building a primary and a secondary school would not be significantly different, except in terms of lab equipments, book supplies and teachers’ salaries, but we need not worry about that for now… Anyways, all payams are meeting independently on 12/26th, so Philip Agony and I will try our best to go to all the payams and then the GENERAL Bor (12/28th) meeting to discuss all those matters as well as mobilize and encourage local participation. I have also been able to talk once again to the contractors, and it is has become very clear that we could easily reduce the cost of schools in lots of ways. First, the most expensive thing is block making, but if we use the Anyidi Girls model, whereby sand and cement were mixed and applied on mesh wire frames to make the walls, the cost can be significantly reduced. Secondly, if we have a pick-up truck, we can easily eliminate so many middlemen and consequently reduce the costs. Looking at the figures from the Quotation Bills I sent out when I was in Yei, the cost of SAND alone amounts to $ 2000 per school. For the five schools, that would be $ 10, 000. Now, if we had our own pickup truck for $ 5000, we would have extra $ 5000 in reserve, plus we would not have to pay for other services such as water transportation, etc. Also, with a truck, it would be easy to mobilize and enhance local participation, including volunteer service, just as was done in the case of Anyidi Girls School, where a community based-approach was employed. In addition, with our own pick-up truck, we can increase efficiency and maintain a great autonomy, raise our profile and credibility as far as partnering with and utilizing the resources of other NGOS/agencies that are working in the area, especially those on the payam levels. So, I really, really request that team reconsiders the pickup-truck idea! Now, if we start the schools building in early in January, we will be able to finish right before the end of March. To get the job rolling right away, I was thinking that we could break the project into the following phases, simply sketched: Phase I
Phase II
Phase III
Finally, I forgot to mention awhile back that Quotations I got from the two contractors (Deng Angau & Machar…) were done at a total cost of $ 500. I have paid that amount from my pocket this week, but we will further arrange a way of getting back that amount, especially next month. NB: I have confirmed the details of the Uganda Construction company, but it would be too costly. It is $ 582, 000 per school and I thought that was insane, given the kind of design they use. PS: I have been told that Mawut Biar Lony (from Abang community) is the chair of the Bor youth in Australia and that his group has been trying to contribute in their own way, so if you can contact him, inquire about what they intend to do and the possibility of joining forces, that would be great. The more our Diaspora communities participate in this initiative the better.
Dear Coalition of the Willing Team, Receive much greeting from Yei, Sudan. I hope you are all doing well and that you have not been extremely worried by the fact that you have not been able to hear from me for so long. I am indeed very safe, although I would like to take this moment to explain how I spent the past few weeks, highlighting some of the frustrations I faced, which made it very difficult for me to keep in touch. All these frustrations are related to transport and communication..... Click here to download the entire report. Bill of Quotation 1
Samuel Akau Garang will travel to Bor South on November 13, 2006 for six months to begin his work as the Primary and Secondary School Development Liaison. His duties will include:
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