A new school at Soanierana

On the 16th of January, we broke ground on an exciting new project: a new CEG (middle school) building at Soanierana, a rural commune about 12km south of Fort Dauphin, home to approximately 10,800 people. There are already two buildings at the CEG, providing a total of 4 classrooms, and the new building will add two more. Around 560 students are currently taught at the school, but due to the shortage of space students are taught on a rotational basis, often waiting for hours every day. Kindly funded by the Flamingo Foundation, the new school building will benefit thousands of children over the next decade, helping them to reach their potential and complete the Baccalaureate examination.

The journey to Soanierana was a short one by our standards – just a quick hour along the road from town. The area itself is beautiful, surrounded by small mountains, luscious rice paddies, giant palms and even occasional cacti, as the famous spiny forest begins a little further south. After meeting the interim mayor and respected elders, we began construction work the following day.

For the first few days work focused on the foundations, with locally-recruited construction labourers digging the trench where the walls would go, whilst the Pioneers and I worked on wire reinforcement pieces to add strength to the cement. After this, we moved on to laying the foundations themselves, alternating layers of rocks and cement to provide a solid footing for all of the walls. On top of this, clay bricks and mortar formed the walls themselves, with everybody getting involved in the bricklaying, as well as building up the reinforced concrete pillars on the corners and at intervals along the walls.

After 18 days of work, and fortunately very little rain, all four exterior walls, and the dividing wall between the two classrooms were finished to a height of ~2 metres, and the first Pioneer visit to the site was complete. We said goodbye to our short-term volunteers, and headed back to Fort Dauphin to work on a different project. Until our next visit in mid-February, the construction team will continue working on the school building, bricklaying and preparing to add the roof (at heights where our insurance companies won’t permit us to go!). Over the next few months, Pioneers and short-term volunteers will build benches for the new classrooms, weave rocks for the floor, render and paint the walls, and of course mix loads more cement.

The new building will be constructed between January and May 2014, and if all goes to plan, the first students will be using it in June. I’m extremely excited to be a part of this project, and proud that I will be able to see it through to completion!