The CISV Agnibilekrou delegation led by Mr. Kocou Libera was applauded and the President of the Committee expressed his joy in face of the whole audience.
Naon Katiohora, President of CISV and main contact of our foundation, explained the meaning of this project as beginning of a future cooperation with SIVA4KIDS.

After his speech, Mr. Libera Kocou officially handed the pens to the Inspector for Agnibilekrou, who afterwards distributed those to the students.
The children were very happy to receive these pens and thankful to all contributors.

The parents who joined this ceremony thanked CISV and reasserted their wish to have a safer school for their children. The Agni-Agni school has no protection fences, no restrooms and no clean water.

Also, the Inspector has expressed his concern for the current status of the school and the need to act fast to improve the structure of the building and the related infrastructures.

Students were invited to double their efforts to have a good academic end of the year and attract support for their school.

The international partners of CISV (like our foundation) will consider this project to give this school a new look and make a safer place for the children.

Background information
Lowoe has a population of approximately 2,000 inhabitants. In 1986 the village received help from the Corporation Togo-Japan, which has built through the years two water pumps in the village to provide all inhabitants with clean drinkable water.
In the last part of 2008, both water pumps broke down due to the fact that roots of some near trees obstructed the tubes under the ground. Therefore, the water could not flow anymore and the water pumps were malfunctioning.

WATER4KIDS
Objective
At the beginning of this year, SIVA4KIDS focused on the repair of those water pumps to allow the children of the local school and all the inhabitants of this village to have access to such precious resource: WATER.
The related project WATER4KIDS had the objective to repair the pumps and set up a structured maintenance and control system that could give longer life to this essential machine.
For this project, our foundation could rely on the support of Emma Sokaty, local contact involved in the communication with the Community, the Corporation Togo-Japan and ECM, the local supplier of replacement parts for these pumps (Vergnet Hydropump HPV 100).
The Community is involved with some periodical transfers to a common bank account in which all the money is saved for preventative maintenance in the future.

WATER4KIDS
Action
SIVA4KIDS started working on several fronts to gather more information and confirm the reliability of this. The actions coordinated by Emmanuel (Market Development S4K) and Emma could already some results: the Community has taken active part to re-asset the fundraising system, the Corporation Togo-Japan intervened to repair the pumps with the help of the villagers, ECM has communicated with an official invoice all the prices of the replacement parts (confirmed by Vergnet at the HQ).

Current situation
As of today, the water is back in the village of Lowoe and all the inhabitants could benefit. Water is not 100% clean since there are still present some particles of mud that affect the purity of the water.
The local Community is thankful to our foundation that initiated this project and motivated all the different players to act in the same direction. The final goal of this mission is partly accomplished.
SIVA4KIDS will have a close look at this project to verify how to cleanse the water that comes from these pumps.

SIVA4KIDS wants to thank all the people involved in this ambitious and important project: water is source of life and children cannot live without.

We would like to express our sincere thanks to Jooke van den Boomen, the chairman of the well known foundation Haagse Hopjes of Transvaal in The Hague, who has donated a very special encyclopedia books of Medicinal information to the students of Suriname. Further more our outmost thanks and appreciation to Geeta Bihariesingh, who has dedicated her spare time to collect second hand Dutch schoolbooks and donated these books to SIVA4KIDS Foundation for further transportation to Suriname, please be noted that this is the second year in a row that Geetha Bihariesingh has contributed this way to help the children of Suriname.

The second hand Dutch school books which are being transported to Suriname, has been collected, storaged and distributed to the basic schools in Suriname by “Stichting U-CARE” of Wanica, which are involved in development project for children, women and the community since 2006 in Suriname.

If you would like to support BOOK4KIDS project of SIVA4KIDS Foundation in The Netherlands, please contact us at info@siva4kids.org or if you would like to support directly to U-CARE foundation please log on to website:

Emmanuel says:”This country is amazing, plenty of contradictions and poverty. But definitely a country that can easily progress, thanks to well educated teachers. Unfortunately, the infrastructure is often unsatisfactory, and sometimes kids, as the rest of the population, don’t have access to vital resources”.

Our activities involved the private school “Les Anges” in Be-kliklame area. This school has been founded and directed by Dougla Koudjo that invested his own funds to help the growth of culture and education of the children in this area. No subventions are given from the State. SIVA4KIDS’s Togolease project advisor Romuald Akitani (at right) is the trusted person for the private school “Les Anges”. We are very happy to work together with a passionate person like Romuald Akitani, who¬†has united¬†with SIVA4KIDS to help/change the life of children¬†in Togo.

A bit more in the countryside is the school close to Aveta. Our contact Emma Sokaty provided all the information regarding the current situation, the urgent needs and the possible improvements. In this village, basic infrastructures are missing and primary needs can’t be satisfied.

The photo reportage is explanatory, we have to say “thanks” one more time to Emmanuel: his passion drove him through these outstanding action. Siva4Kids wants to do more for the children in this country.

Lydia enthusiastic says: “It’s great to join Siva4Kids, I am confident that my support will help us to achieve good results. I am just onboard and I already feel rewarded by the board that assigned me some important projects. I will do my best to pay back this recognition”.

Lydia is already hands-on this new challenge and a detailed description of Water4Kids projects will follow.

We welcome her onboard and we stay tuned. (see in the pictures the welcome drink for Lydia’s assignment)

After MySpace (link), that helped S4K to reach young artists interested in a cooperation for the project Music4Kids, Facebook will give S4K a stronger presence in the virtual world in order to easily spread messages and to promote future projects.
S4K group has already reached more than 50 members during the first week: thanks to all the supporters and members.

If you already have a Facebook profile, click on the link below:

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/group.php?gid=122817270367

250 children from 2,5 year till 10 year old are following classes there. The school does not receive any subventions from the state.

The 2nd school is the public school of a village called Lowoe ( near Aveta) at 25 km north of Lome, which was built in 1998.

On 2003 this school became public. Today 200 children from 5 till 12 are going to this school. The school is missing all the primary needs. (no water, no electricity, no toilet).

The director Dogla Koudjo and the teachers are paid by the state. However the school has to pay for the books they are using ( 300 francs-CFA per year).

In both schools the reception was outstanding. Teachers and children were very enthusiastic and they are looking forward to hear from us”.

Dutch article: 2008 – PENS4KIDS and BOOKS4KIDS in Paramaribo, Suriname

Paramaribo -  Stichting U Care heeft vorige week vrijdag, in samenwerking met Stichting Shiva for Kids in Nederland, een schenking gedaan aan OS Boxel.  Het ging bij deze om lees- en leerboeken, pennen en encyclopedieën. Verder zijn er 4 leertafels geschonken voor de mediatheek van de school. De vertegenwoordiger van Stichting U Care, Reshmi Bihariesingh, zegt in gesprek met DBS dat de schenking als ondersteuning van de kinderen gezien moet worden. Volgens Bihariesingh zijn de encyclopedieën geschonken door de familie Poeran, aan wie veel dank verschuldigd is. Het is naar zeggen van de vertegenwoordiger niet de eerste keer dat de school ondersteuning krijgt van de stichting. ‘We hebben al eerder geholpen met renovatie van de school. Qua leermiddelen, is dit wel de eerste keer.’

Het ligt in de lijn der verwachtingen dat de school voor meer ‘verrassingen’ in aanmerking komt. Wat al de geschonken spullen gekost hebben, maakt volgens Bihariesingh niet veel uit en is ook niet van belang. ‘We doen het voor de kinderen en geld is momenteel niet aan de orde.’

Het schoolhoofd van OS Boxel, Rita Soerohardjo РDjosari, zegt bijzonder blij en ingenomen te zijn met de geste. Vooral de tafels en boeken kan ze heel goed gebruiken in de opkomende mediatheek, die nog niet helemaal af is. ‘Het voldoet nog niet aan de eisen waaraan een mediatheek moet voldoen.’ Zo moet de ruimte nog voorzien worden van airconditioning en moeten computers aangeschaft worden. Volgens het schoolhoofd worden de kinderen op haar school gestimuleerd om boeken te lezen. De school telt momenteel 130 leerlingen.

Bron: DBSURINAME.com

This Micro-projects called PENS4KIDS is made possible by the 30.000 quality long-duration pens, which were donated to SIVA4KIDS Foundation last year 2007 by one of the leading Telephony and Internet service provider @Home in The Netherlands.

 

The Core mission of PENS4KIDS is to create a trustful partnership via local organizations which have similar mission as SIVA4KIDS Foundation in order to support the primary schools in 3rd world countries with study material such as the ong-duration pens for all kids of the school for a duration of 2-3 years. During this 2-3 years, SIVA4KIDS Foundation will inform the world about the other needs of the specific schools and sur-roundings for the benefit of Kids and youngsters.