Since September 28, 2020, Fair Future Foundation and Kawan Baik Are Back on the Construction Site of the New School. We Use a Hashtag to Quote It: #bangunmbinudita. Kawan Andri, Kawan Ayu, Kawan Nofi, Kawan Optimus, Kawan Alex and All the Others Who Are Hard at Work So That the Children of This Very Poor Region of Sumba-est, Can Return to School Next November, Are Working Strong for That.
Hello to all friends of the foundation,
Since September 28, 2020, Fair Future Foundation and Kawan baik are back on the construction site of the new school. We use a hashtag to quote it: #BangunMbinuDita.
Kawan Andri, Kawan Ayu, Kawan Nofi, Kawan Optimus, Kawan Alex and all the others who are hard at work so that the children of this very poor region of East Sumba, can return to school next November, are working strong for that. Of course, all the others who are at the Denpasar base camp are all there to help you, they are the ones sending you this message. Thanks to all the friends who are there and everyone else too.
We arrived on the #BangunMbinuDita site on September 28 around 5:30 p.m., the evening chill was already being felt, then the night fell! Suddenly as is always the case here. On the bumpy and difficult to pass path, we really hurt our scooter Ayu and me. I still wonder how he resists this treatment… I’m talking about our scooter!
Because frankly, the site of #BangunMbinuDita is far from everything, and only almost impassable paths lead there. To summarise, it takes about two hours from Waingapu to get to the #BangunMbinuDita site. It’s really, really beautiful, I can’t say it enough… And I just can’t get used to it. Yes, even after all these trips to Sumba, I am still in awe of so much beauty that nature offers us.
So after nearly two hours of suffering for the scooter, in the middle of hundreds of hills on which nothing grows any more because of the drought and the stifling heat … We stop, we are just impressed: There, in the middle of these hundreds of small hills that we call here “Bukit”, we can see the construction of the new school of #RebuildMbinuDita, which stands there, at the top of one of the hills of the region.
How can I tell you that with just words? #BangunMbinuDita? This is the ultimate logistical and organisational trick! It’s a challenge, a great challenge that we are all well on the way to succeeding together. A feeling that takes you to the guts when you are there!
Around this hill, there is nothing! But nothing at all! Just houses far from each other, where families of extreme poverty live. They have no access to water, no electricity, not enough food and a social, sanitary context, with weather and natural conditions that cannot improve the living conditions of these hundreds of families. But they’re happy, they smile all the time and they help us so much, it’s crazy.
We restarted the project in mid August last. I explained it to you, COVID-19 has been there and has nailed our beak for many months. Admittedly, the epidemic is apparently still as virulent, but the measures put in place by local governments, together with national political authorities, mean that we can once again go to Sumba to develop the actions of the foundation, including # BangunMbinuDita, the reconstruction of the school destroyed in December 2019.
This is the most ultimate mission for all of us that we have ever been given. I am saying this not because it is difficult, but because it is necessary! Necessary for the hundreds of families and all the kids out there. Education is a right, the most important along with the right to have access to a healthy life. Yes, ultimate because we are far from everything; Building a school of this type, there, in the middle of the hills and without any logistical resources, is crazy! I like it you know! The most unlikely challenges, for so-called “lost” causes, are those for which most of the time no one is doing anything.
And this is the case here: At the beginning we had a simple school, made of bamboo, earth and it collapsed because of a storm on December 19, 2019, we were in tears. Two classes, fifty kids aged 8 to 10 for whom this place was all disappeared in just a few minutes. This #BangunMbinuDita school was not only extremely important for these kids, but also for the teachers, for all the people in the region who like all parents in the world want the best for their children, so that they can access maybe be, and hopefully, to a different future. This school was very important for the whole region. But without a school, without education, without this place, not only nearly 100 children no longer have access to school, several generations of people will certainly suffer the consequences.
So we #BangunMbinuDita because we know it is essential.
This construction is beautiful you know, it is certainly a crazy project, but a safe project. The kind of pro-humanity action that makes you realise that together we can make a big difference.
So tonight we are on the #BangunMbinuDita site and it’s mind blowing. I’ll let you take a look at the photos we show you below, I hope we can imagine the context, although I can easily imagine that we will not. We are therefore in an unknown land, isolated and extremely rural. People here don’t refer to the hour but to the passing of time. The day begins when the sun rises and ends when the sun goes down. No phone, no photo on the walls of their bamboo houses. The kids walk more than ten kilometres for some to reach their school of #RebuildMbinuDita.
There you go, tomorrow we will talk to you about how we organise ourselves, as life goes on here, at the top of the highest hill of MbinuDita. We feel strong and surrounded, we know that you are all there with us. Soon, we will be able to welcome volunteers out of those who are already there every day, I am talking about the inhabitants of the surrounding villages who cook for us, who help so much and more so that this achievement is tomorrow, proud and standing up there, at the top. from the hill.
To help us, to help them, you can make a donation here: https://actionforfairfuture.org/new-school/ or make a bank donation to one of the two Swiss foundation accounts here by following this link.
Thank you so much for all of your help.
