Cindy's report from the Fulani school

The Fulani school is really doing well children and parents have so far shown great interest and are very committed. last week on the 6th of May 2011, the student turn out was poor due to heavy down pour the night before and during the early hours of the morning.

The children were split up into two classes with a teacher in each class; the very little ones learnt their ABC's and did some poetry recitals whilst the other class learnt some phonics. 21 students were present and seven were absent. The school still maintains a class of 28 students.

The general environment in the Fulani school is challenging. The students have no tables to write on. The guys bring out benches from the houses to sit on. The class room floor is sometimes very muddy and the children keep dropping their books and pencils in the mud.

Today's turn out was good - a new student was enrolled, Asamau’s mother! Asamau’s mother now wants Asamau and her older sister, Aishatu, to go to the local school. She realises that one day a week is not enough for the children to get a complete education. But she can’t attend school, and by her being there, we can help her to understand many different things related to health and basic education
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The children can now recite their ABC's and recite some basic rhymes. The young adults, 5 ladies, 3 of them mothers, can now recite and identify the ABC's and can pronounce two and three letter words.

The class was split into two at the beginning, with a teacher in each class but the two teachers are not sufficient. We need to find a solution to give all the students the attention they need. This can be done either through more volunteers or taking the classes separately. One of our challenges is that the children are quite wild. They are not very disciplined, because of lack of exposure to structured learning. The little ones were today a little restless, crying and fighting for example whilst we are trying to do more advanced things with older children. Another solution may be to try and get some of the adults in the community involved in looking after the little ones whilst we deal with the older ones, including mothers. This is another challenge, and remains to be decided – we are open to any ideas!
  
Elias has not come along for two sessions – was sick last week, apparently still sick this week with a headache – we need to chase this up as Elias is one of the few with up to date NHIS cards, he should have been to hospital land gotten better by now!