Bambasi’s children more hopeful and safer thanks to new school
Ababo Debela is a 10-year-old girl with big dreams. She wants to grow up to become a teacher and help the children of her village who have lost their parents to the AIDS epidemic.
She is the youngest of seven children and while both of her parents are still alive, many of her classmates have not been so fortunate. HIV/AIDS is rampant in Bambasi, the remote rural town where she lives in western Ethiopia.
Until recently, it seemed Ababo’s dream might never become a reality as she was going to be forced out of her local school due to severe overcrowding.
Built in 1951, the Bambasi Junior Secondary School is currently serving an area that encompasses 18 villages; considerably more than what existed at the time the school was built.
Many of these villages sprang up almost overnight following the Great Famine of 1984 when the government of the time resettled thousands of people from northern Ethiopia in the area. Unfortunately, no additional schools were built to allow for this sudden population growth.
As a result, the school had to limit the length of time each student could attend. To continue their education, children either had to walk two hours each way to the next nearest schools or relocate to a larger town.
Neither of those options would have been available to Ababo as her family could not afford to send her away to school and the journey by foot to the next nearest school would have been too dangerous.
“In the past, girls who were unable to study at the school in town [Bambasi] were forced to walk through unsafe bamboo forests to the next school,” said Bambasi principal Ato Tafese Fufa.
“These girls were occasionally abducted and raped by hooligans.”
Thankfully, Ababo is now completing her education in the safety of her own village thanks to an expansion project funded by A Glimmer of Hope.
The foundation funded the construction of three new blocks – each comprising of four classrooms capable of accommodating 60 children per room – and a library.
The new structures have enabled the school’s administration to increase enrolment by nearly 50 percent and allowed them to offer continuing education to students like Ababo.
Principal Ato Tafese says the expansion is already showing several benefits.
“It has reduced the number of children going to nearby districts in search of education and made it easier for families to look after their children more closely,” he said.
Ababo’s mother, Meteke Geleta, summed up the feelings of many local parents by expressing her gratitude for the expansion project.
“These days Ababo is telling me new things that I did not expect to hear from her at this age. She said that the new classrooms are far better than the old ones as there is more space now. It is really good to have a school nearby because it takes a lot of money to send a child to school in other districts. Also, I don’t have to worry because Ababo is only a 10-minute walk away,” she said.
As well as giving her an opportunity to join an anti-AIDS club, the “new school” has also given Ababo cause for optimism, something she did not have before. When asked about her studies, she responds just as any excited 10-year-old should:
“Out of 60 students in our class my rank for the first semester was eleventh. But, I am determined to improve during the next semester and as soon as our library is completed, I will also be able to read more books and work on my assignments,” she said.
It looks like the future children of Bambasi are going to be in good hands.