Brazzaville school rehabilitation to benefit some 7,000 children

A programme to rehabilitate 11 schools in Brazzaville, capital of the Republic of Congo, was announced on Wednesday by Rosalie Kama-Niamayoua, minister of primary and secondary education, with financing from the US Department of Agriculture. The funds are being provided through a US NGO, the International Partnership for Human Development (IPHD). The initiative, due to take two months, will cost 63.81 million francs CFA (US $106,887), of which 56.89 million francs ($95,295) will come from IPHD and 6.92 million francs ($11,591) will come from local communities, and is expected to benefit some 7,000 children. The 11 schools are located in seven neighbourhoods of Brazzaville that had either been damaged during fighting between government forces and Ninja rebels or pillaged by bandits. NGOs specialised in construction - namely the Association Terre et Village; the Societe mutualiste des eleves et etudiants congolais; the Association des constructeurs chretiens; Action infrastructure et developpement; the Groupe des techniciens pour les etudes et realisations des infrastructures de base; and the Centre d'initiatives et d'action pour le developpement - have been selected to carry out the rehabilitation of latrines, roofs, and other interior and exterior work. "The work taking place in these 11 primary schools of Brazzaville are part of a larger national rehabilitation programme of 30 schools across the country, due to be completed before the end of this year," Clement Nguimby, the IPHD representative, told IRIN. At the end of July, IPHD began a 41.2-million-franc ($74,277) rehabilitation of schools throughout the regions of Bouenza, Lekoumou and Niari in southwestern Congo, where civil wars of the 1990s had caused major damage. Nguimby said that IPHD was next planning on improving roads and waterworks in the departments of Bouenza and Lekoumou, and Cuvette and Cuvette-Ouest in the north. "These efforts will be financed by the US Defense Department, which has expressed its interest in participating in the reconstruction of rural Congo," Nguimby said. According to a 1999 report by the UN Children's Fund and the African Student Parents' Association, school enrolment rate in the Congo - one of the few African countries where it used to be 100 percent - had dropped to 78.9 percent in 1998. Conflict and its aftermath also increased the illiteracy rate, to 24.9 percent. Literacy for men was estimated at 83 percent, while for women the rate was 67 percent. The average school dropout rate was 7 percent, the study said. "Congo, which was once among countries with a solid school system, has seen the quality of its education system fall into a serious state of dilapidation," Schmidt said. IPHD, created in the United States in 1983, has been working in the Congo for three years in infrastructure rehabilitation, food distribution, agriculture and micro-credit.