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My name is Gemma Ellis and I, Alistair Barron, Scott Leonard, Becky Appleby and Sarah Ward have recently returned from our one month expedition to Namibia, in south West Africa.
We travelled with 12 other pupils from Driffield School as well as two teachers from the art department and one leader from the organisation we travelled with, World Challenge.
Our aim in travelling to Namibia for one month was to refurbish a Namibian primary school, and, after fundraising for 18 month to raise a total of £3095 each we managed to do this. We were not without help though, the Bulletins kind donation of £250 to our team help us immensely towards our target.
While in Namibia we took a look at the African landscape, trekked across Waterberg plateau and completed our all important project on the school in Soris Soris. These photos show us on expedition and the following is an account of the time we spent on project, improving life for Namibian children.
On July the 9th, two teachers from Driffield School, one world challenge leader and 17 pupils including myself left Gatwick airport on a one month expedition to Namibia.
Our aim was to improve the conditions of one primary school, out in the Namibian desert and take a look at the education in Africa compared to our own. The school we visited was A. Gariseb primary, a reasonably sized boarding school surrounded by small homes, one local shop and a considerable amount of sand.
On arriving we met Mr Henry Mannpanker the principle of the school, who allowed us to be introduced to the ‘Namibian learners’ of A. Gariseb in an assembly. We were told that the learners would only be educated up to grade 7, so the children would be approximately 12 years old when leaving school, much younger than ourselves.
On first look we noticed that the school was in poor condition, the canteen walls had huge holes in and were poorly kept. The outside of the buildings was shabby and badly maintained and most windows were broken. After buying supplies in Otjiwarongo we changed this.
The first thing on our agenda was to fill in the holes in the canteen and three regularly used class rooms in order to be able to decorate them later. We set about that and in the same instance managed to paint the out side of the canteen light blue, the school colour.
Once the holes were filled the next task was decorating. The whole team pitched in to decorate the inside of the canteen green, three class rooms light blue and the outside of four class rooms. We then began to split off and work on small individual projects.
Boys from the team made swings for the children in their play area.
A large school emblem was painted at the assembly area and the alphabet was hand painted with illustrations for the younger children as a learning aid.
Many of the artists in our team worked on projects and a large map was also created, showing, the world, Africa and the united kingdom. Again, as a learning aid for the children.
Once the canteen had been painted, a few members of the team set about painting food upon the walls, to make it fun and decorative for the learners to eat in. The end result looked much better as you can see from our photographs.
The times tables were also hand painted upon a wall, mainly as a help to the older learners, they took a long time however looked professional when finished.
Many of the team worked together to decorate the outside of four class rooms. However once they had been finished some members of the team took the opportunity to make the class rooms look fun and exciting by painting animals upon the out side. These included giraffe, zebra, lizard and some animals which the children learn about in the school year.
Lastly Becky Appleby spent her last days in Soris Soris, creating an Etosha scene upon the wall. Etosha is a large national park in the North of Namibia and, is very well known and draws a lot of tourists to Namibia. It is home to many animals such as elephants, rhino and lions and Becky painted a scene by the water hole. She illustrated an elephant and many other animals drinking which the children seemed to love.
The learners told us they liked our work as they learn English and could communicate with us well. They seemed to want to spend all their time with us and constantly gave us attention. We spent a lot of time playing and getting to know them and have made remarkable friendships. We enjoyed their company and were happy to work on their school in order to make it better for them as they had been so forthcoming and affectionate to us.
The children sang and danced a lot. We taught them our dances such as ‘the hokey kokey’ and they taught us ‘Jesus is the king’. We picked up a few songs but were constantly blown away by their singing ability, they were amazing.
Overall the time we spent on the school changed it immensely. The presentation, working conditions and appearance of the school improved to make it a much nicer place for the children to live. We left boxes of food for school canteen and a large box of toys and sports things for the children as they have very little. Many children have only hand made toys, such as this car made from wire and bottle tops.
We feel pleased and privileged to have visited A.Gariseb and hope to have contact with the school and learners in the future.
We thank all the people who helped us fundraise to get to Namibia as it truly has been an unforgettable experience.
By Gemma Ellis (16)
