Onguta School Namibia - support

Onguta School  

In July 2019, there was a joyous occasion as the longed for new Onguta School was gifted to the community at the Ehirovipuka Conservancy, Namibia. The community, pupils, and teachers are incredibly grateful to the generosity of AfriCat UK Supporters who, with others, helped to raise the money to build it. The school is now operational much to everyone’s delight and the final deferred payment for the building was made to the builders September 2020.

However, to help this community further especially at a time of deep crisis with the impact of the worldwide pandemic and a drought to contend with; money is needed to help with costs like food, maintenance costs, materials and equipment. 

The school has classrooms, ablutions, stores rooms, offices, kitchen, meeting space, water, and solar panels for electricity. However, on a visit in 2020 the water pump had broken, and the school was awaiting its repair by the water company. This cost needs to be met from the school and the community. While the government does usually provide funding for a meal for the children. This does not always happen, as AfriCat UK found out a visit in 2018, should there be another urgent need for government funds like a drought. Donations made could be used to proivde emergency food supplies, so the children get a meal. The teacher’s salaries are paid by the government.

The Onguta School can support sixty children from the local farming communities. The pupils keenly attended their classes happily walking long distances. To maintain the current number of teachers, which is two, a school roll of 60 pupils is needed. To ensure this is the case, an option being considered to use an old hut near the school as a small boarding house. This would allow children from a wider area to attend. However it would need to be equipped with beds, bedding and with someone to look after the children cooking an evening meal etc.  

Any donations made will go to the school through the Namibian Lion Trust, who then operating as AfriCat North, made the offer to the community to raise the funds to build the school. The Namibian Lion Trust works with local communities to help secure their futures and development while supporting local lion populations and helping to mitigate human wildlife conflict.  

Any help you can give is so much appreciated by the pupil’s teachers and community.  

More details www.africat.co.uk and www.namibianliontrust.org