Project Benin: Space to Learn -- Building a Secondary Classroom Building

After consulting with people in my village and observing what my village might need, I’ve decided on a few projects in addition to teaching. The first project is the construction of a classroom building with three rooms. My school currently has 7^th-11^th grade level classes. There are about 1,080 students and currently 11 classrooms. This number distribution means that there are 98 students per classroom. Each class has around 60 students. In the coming school year, my school will be adding two 12^th grade level classes further increasing the size of the school to 1,410 students. To compensate for the lack of classrooms, the school has night classes and classes on Saturday. Night classes are quite difficult considering the feeble electricity especially during the raining season when it pours and the electricity is cut. After observing all of these discrepancies, I decided a classroom building is a great sustainable contribution to my community and to my students. Students will have some free time to schedule extracurricular activities during the week since students are often busy on the weekends either with chores or working in the fields. Hopefully with this building there will be less night classes.

Fortunately, I will be working with a fabulous partner who is a fellow volunteer in the nearby town, Natitingou. Veronica Swank is a Small Business volunteer from Texas. We have worked together with Toucountouna community leaders and our chosen contractor. The contractor we’ve selected is a Toucountouna local. He will hire workers from Toucountouna and bring new work to the village. The community it very dedicated to this project as they have agreed to contribute 36% to finance the project.

The project is called a PCPP which is the Peace Corps Partnership Program. This program does not actually fund the project but it enables our family and friends to donate on the Peace Corps website and be a part of the Peace Corps experience. The grant money will go to building materials such as cement, tin roof, blackboards, paint, and labor. Veronica and I each will raise about $8,000 from contributions from family and friends (that means you! J ) and of course friends of friends or family of friends….  This is a great cause to donate to because you will not only be helping children in West Africa and the Peace Corps but you will be able to see what happens with your charitable tax-deductable donation.

I sent in the PCPP grant application including construction budget (translated from French, most difficult translation I’ve ever done) and it was approved. Yay! Now starts the fundraising process. The building cannot start until we reach our financial goal. When all of the money is funded, the money goes directly into my Peace Corps bank account and I can start funding the labor and the materials for the classroom building.

So how can you donate? Do you ask? You can click on the link below. Once you get to the Peace Corps Donate website enter in the project number ‘680-208’ and then you will see a short description of my project. Then in the right hand corner, you will see a delightful “Donate” link. You will then click and donate. Simple as that. J And don’t forget, it is a tax-deductable donation.

As an added incentive, everyone who donates will be commemorated in a mural on the side of the new building, thanking everyone who made this project possible for the Beninese students.

So please… GO DONATE! Help the children in my village and be a part of my Peace Corps experience! J

Donate at:

http://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=resources.donors.

Enter:

 “Berns” or “680-208” (Project Number ) in the search box. Then select “Secondary School Classroom Building” and click the “Donate” button.

Remember… Students in Benin, West Africa, face many obstacles, but limited classroom space doesn’t have to be one of them.