The ROP has some very exciting news to report – our children will soon be getting their very own, newly-built primary school!

The school will be built on our new land (just five minutes away from the site we are currently renting) and it will be the first building ever constructed on our land! This is brilliant news for the ROP and all of the children we support – it marks the first step in our transition to our very own, permanent centre on our own land. We couldn’t be happier about the news!

Home of the future ROP School!

Our application to an organisation called Engineers Without Borders (EWB) to build the new school was approved earlier this week. And yesterday we heard that their Colorado chapter – who we have been working very closely with on the application – have also been approved to be our partners in the project.

Their team will visit the ROP in June to finalise the design of the new school, with work to begin later this year. We are hoping the new school will feature a rainwater-catchment system to conserve water for the dry season, natural ventilation to make the classrooms much cooler and more comfortable for the students, and improved toilets, among other things.

Current ROP classroom

We are extremely grateful to EWB USA for approving our application and supporting our plans to move the ROP to a permanent home. The rent we are paying at our current site is putting pressure on our already-stretched budget. We are particularly grateful to the EWB University of Colorado – Boulder Student Chapter for their patience and hard work in supporting our application. Thanks must also go to Tony and Carol Roberts of Australia – without their generous donation which allowed the ROP to buy its own land, none of this would have been possible.

English lesson

We can’t wait to get started on the project! Now we just need volunteers to come and help build the school – any takers?