RCA 16 – SUPPORT FOR THE SCHOOLING OF PYGMIES
Project Location
The "Holy Family of Nazareth" school in Siriri is located 15 kilometers from Bagandou, deep in the equatorial forest. Siriri is a Pygmy camp, located in the Bale Loko Municipality, the Mbaiki Sub-Prefecture, and the Lobaye Region, in the southwest of the Central African Republic. It is a school of integration, fostering tolerance, respect, and collaboration between the Bantou and Aka Pygmies.
The population inhabiting this area is made up of two ethnic groups. The Pygmies, the ancient inhabitants of the forest, are skilled hunters and experts in the plants, tubers, and nutritional riches that the forest holds. For them, the forest is like a mother who always welcomes them with her silence, broken only by the harmonious song of birds and the rustling of the wind; she welcomes and nourishes them. The Bantu consider themselves superior to the Pygmies and often treat them as cheap labor.
Project description
The present project aims to offer the possibility to pygmy children to have access to kindergarten and elementary school. This year we have 325 pupils spread over six classes: one kindergarten class and five primary school classes.
In addition to training children, the project aims to provide literacy courses for adults who, for various reasons, had to drop out of school when they were young. Every time the children come to school, they receive a mid-morning snack of rice, milk and sugar that gives them energy (some pupils travel 10 km to come to school). Most students are pygmies and contribute to the school with basic necessities found seasonally in the forest (like fruit, berries, or large earthworms) and bundles of wood.
The school provides the teaching materials and salaries of the 7 teachers present. From this school there are 3 students who have completed their studies very well and we are supporting them with scholarships to help them reach a higher educational level.
Objectives
- Give both Bantu and Pygmy children living in this area of the forest, isolated from population centers, the opportunity to access school education
- To ensure an integral formation: moral, human and Christian that can enable students to become responsible and respectable persons in society
- Allow adult Pygmies and Bantu who are illiterate to learn to read and write
- Support the updating of teachers with pedagogical sessions.
- Sponsor the studies of students Joël, Miguel, and Yvon, in the hope that they will one day help their own people.
Beneficiaries
Direct: 350 students of the Santa Famiglia de Nazareth school; 15 adults from the Pygmy and Bantou School of Literacy; 3 students at the collège.
Indirect: families and society
Local contribution
Pygmy parents often pay in kind by carrying bunches of bananas or taros potatoes. Mothers bring bundles of firewood, precious for the kitchen. They also help to mow the grass in the school grounds.
The Bantu parents pay the school fees which is 10, 000f.cfa (15,25 euros) for kindergarten and 12, 000f.cfa (18,30 euros) for elementary school.
Referent sister of the project: Sr. Daniela Fanti
Project's costs