On April 25, 2015, a massive earthquake ruined Nepal, one of the poorest
countries in the world. A few days after the earthquake, Maciej Pastwa,
a traveler from Poznan, reached the village Bakrang-6, Gorkha district,
50 kilometers from the epicenter. Together with the our association, he
decided to rebuild a devastated school, attended by 300 pupils on
regular basis. The traveler founded, along with the school principal,
one of the teachers and some benevolent Nepali people, a voluntary
committee, aiming to rebuild the school. They shared their idea with the
local authorities, who appreciated the efforts of the committee and
promised to support the planned actions. Only 60% of the Nepali society
can read and write, thus rebuilding this school was particularly
important.
Our goal was to rebuild a 500 square meter school, comprised of 14 classrooms.
The whole process of rebuilding school begun in November, 2015, as we were waiting for the end of monsoon season that enabled us to transfer all necessary building materials to Bakrang-6.
The earthquake was very strong so unfortunately, three out of four buildings, belonging to the school complex, had to be pulled down. The last building required mending so it would be possible to set up a secretariat there in the future. And of course we also planed to build a new 500 square meter, two-storey school, comprised of 14 classrooms. We also intend to extend the project, making it possible for the volunteers to organize extracurricular activities for children, including English lessons.
In order to rebuild the school, we needed large sums of money. The predicted cost of
the whole process was 400 000 PLN. Due to the fact that the cost is were high, we involved various groups in this action. We were raising money among the citizens of Poznan, and we introduced the project to different schools across Wielkopolska province. In this way, Polish pupils will had a
chance to help their Nepali peers. In addition, Maciej Pastwa has declared that he will cover a part of the above mentioned amount, by selling his own apartment, and people from Bakrang-6 have promised to pull down the devastated school buildings themselves, so we won’t have to cover the demolition costs.
We also managed to collect the remaining amount with the support of the
“Polak Potrafi” community:
www.polakpotrafi.pl/projekt/nepal
We maade it! On the 02.06.2017, which is after two years of hard, voluntary work, we have built big, colorful and most of all solid and durable school in Bakrang-6. Children could finally move from temporary school to their new and beautiful building.
It would not be possible without everyone who has believed that our mission can be successful and all those who contributed in school rebuilding process. Most of all we thank Maciej and Sylwia for their titanic amount of work. You are great guys! Opening day was very emotional and joyful day for the whole village. A day that we all will remember for long time. Here you can find a short report of the whole process of rebuilding school in Bakrang-6.
Educational project: What unites us?