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English In Moyale woreda (district), Dawa Zone, Somali Region
“You have put your mark in our community, and we really appreciate your contribution”
Mr. Ismail Issack, Qabanawa Primary School representative
The conflict that ravaged the Moyale woreda (district) in the Somali region of Ethiopia took a devastating toll on the community’s existent facilities; the schools were no exception. For the most part, the schools were in a bad shape even before. Some classrooms were destroyed and students had to sit on the ground with no chairs nor tables to accommodate them. In addition to the conflict, the community is amongst the majorly drought affected areas, hence, it was difficult for the community to send their kids to school having very limited resources to feed them.
Since the end of the conflict, a persistent drought continued to have a devastating effect on the community. While the local administration and the community have been trying to secure resources to reconstruct the facilities, there are so many issues that any rehabilitation or rebuilding work to open back the schools is largely dependent on external resources secured from humanitarian organisations.
So, this is where CISP has been working, with the support of the Ethiopia Humanitarian Fund of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) and in partnership with local NGO Pastoralist Concern, urgently addressing the immediate needs of the most vulnerable children.
The work was done in all five schools of the Moyale woreda and consisted in construction work such as rehabilitation and rebuilding of classrooms, compound gate construction, creation of handwashing facilities and gender sensitive bathrooms as well as services work such as a feeding program and the provision of scholastic materials.
Beside the physical rehabilitation and reconstruction, with the COVID-19 pandemic still ongoing, it was necessary to provide the schoolswith personal protection equipment materials and hand-washing soaps; hygiene promotion trainings were also part of the intervention reaching a total of almost 3000 students.
“I would like to thank CISP for this immense opportunity provided in leveling the school to accommodate the basic necessities that any school should have as a primary requirements to be called a school. With the previous status, I was really discouraged and was planning to transfer to another school but now we have more students and are more motivated”, said Mr. Sisay Tadesse, principal of Qabanawa school of Moyale woreda. He has also mentioned that even under this severe drought time, the enrollment rate of students has increased while the dropout rate decreased significantly.
