Guinea-Bissau: Heavy Rains Damage Local School

The months between June and October are considered to be the rainy season in Guinea-Bissau. The amount of rainfall during these months can often put a halt to many scheduled activity, also causing difficulties with telecommunication services. The Rising Voices grantee project Youth Voices of Bandim and Enterramento had difficulties accessing the internet because of the heavy rains, but its facilities and meeting place for the cultural group Netos de Bandim also suffered significant damage. Ector Diogenes Cassamá wrote on the blog Bairro Bandim [pt]:

A chuva derrubou a escola comunitária do grupo cultural Netos de Bandim. O espaço era utilizado para o ensino primário das crianças no período de manha, para os ensaios do Grupo Cultural Netos de Bandim no período da tarde e para alfabetização dos adultos no período noturno. É de salientar que a maior parte dos alunos pertence às famílias com a extrema dificuldade financeira e uma boa porção é órfã, meninos de criação e ainda de outras categorias similares e, que geralmente carecem de meios para assistir as contribuições das mensalidades exigidas pela escola e, sobretudo a fraca capacidade econômica do país. Você que é amigo, agradecemos desde já a vossa colaboração de acordo com a possibilidade para a reabilitação deste espaço!

The rain brought down the community school belonging to the cultural group Netos de Bandim. The space was being used in the morning as a primary school for children, as a rehearsal space for the cultural group Netos de Bandim in the afternoon, and at night for literacy classes for adults. It is worth noting that the majority of the students come from families with extreme financial difficulties, and a large portion are orphans or from other similar categories, and they often lack the means to afford the monthly fees for the school due to the weak economic capacity of the country. We ask you and thank you, our friend, for any cooperation in helping us to rebuild this space!

A photo of the damage sustained can be seen on the group's Flickr account:

Heavy rains cause damage to school in the Bandim neighborhood. Photo by Ector Cassamá

1 comment

Join the conversation

Authors, please log in »

Guidelines

  • All comments are reviewed by a moderator. Do not submit your comment more than once or it may be identified as spam.
  • Please treat others with respect. Comments containing hate speech, obscenity, and personal attacks will not be approved.