Rainbow of Peace School
The Canadian Samaritans for Africa believes that education and skills development are two ways towards stimulating development at the grassroots level in Africa. This is why we are involved in the development of quality education in small communities like Achi in Eastern Nigeria in West Africa. This is what led us to Rainbow of Peace Comprehensive Secondary School in this community.
This school is a community-initiative started since 1982. The women of this community wanted to build a community-supported educational center for the comprehensive education of the children of this community especially the girls. The school has a preferential admission for girls who are also given opportunities for skill and professional development. The school is 100% community owned and receive no funding or stipend from the government. The parents tax themselves and the Catholic church in the community undertakes annual fund-raising events to support the schools. Most of the staff are volunteers. The Daughters of Divine Love nuns manage the school which reduces significantly the management cost because the nuns are not paid.
The question one may ask is: Why is the community running a school when the government has public schools? The first reason is that rural communities in Nigeria like most other African countries are increasingly taking responsibilities for their futures in the face of the strain and near collapse of public institutions in the continent. Many communities undertake educational and development projects because the government has failed them in that regard. In addition, private schools offer better quality education than the public schools. They also offer a more integrated education that combines both classical and religious dimension to the educational enterprise. In addition, unlike the public schools, private schools like Rainbow emphasise functional education, and skills development. Rainbow also have large farms to help feed the students as well as teach them farming techniques.
The Canadian Samaritans for Africa wants to support the school in four ways:
- To help the completion of the classroom blocks>the classroom has not been roofed and the classes do not have doors and windows.
- To help the construction and equipment of a library for the school that will be equipped with instructional materials
- To help the construction of residential buildings for the students
- Offer scholarships to high performing students from poor families so that they can fulfill their educational potential
What Canadian Samaritans for Africa has done so far
- The Canadian Samaritans in the Fall of 2008 donated a mini-van to the school for use in transportation of the staff and students.
- The Canadian Samaritans for Africa is helping with the completion of the roofing of the classroom block with a grant of 7,500 Canadian dollars. We will also raise more funds to help complete the building and equip the laboratory for the study of chemistry, physics, and biology.
*Donations received will go into any of these four objectives.