CAAS experiences the shortcomings of the rural school system at first hand when the young women are admitted to the six-month basic course. It is therefore very committed to promoting general education in Siby and Mandé (the 20 municipalities surrounding Siby).
For some years now, there has been a school office specifically for the Mandé, a so-called Center d’Animation Pédagogique (CAP). This CAP is a neighbor of the CAAS and holds its teacher conferences under the multifunctional hangar on the CAAS campus.
The CAAS also hosts annual school competitions and the intensive tutoring summer camps, which serve to close the gaps of the previous school year a little. Hundreds of students take part in them.
Through the regular and intimate exchange with the CAP subject teachers on the one hand and the head of the Kalassa elementary school on the other, the CAAS has come across the major imbalance in the so-called second cycle, grades 7 to 9 of the actually compulsory elementary school. More than one hundred young students aged between 13 and 16 set off twice a day on the 3 km walk to the hopelessly overcrowded school in Siby. For these young people, schooling and mastering the essential cultural techniques of reading, writing and arithmetic is the only way out of rural poverty.
The elementary school in Kalassa is not a state school. As an école communautaire, it belongs to the village itself and stands on village land. It is located in the town center and thus also serves as a meeting place. This was a key prerequisite for the funding.
This building was a useful addition to the existing school grounds and created a schoolyard. The entire site, which was previously unprotected, is surrounded by a dense hedge and the schoolyard is planted with shade-giving trees. In the center of the schoolyard, there is a water tap from the village drinking water network set up by CAAS.
In order not only to remedy the lack of school places described above, but also to set an example of what such a “middle school” can look like today, the building is designed fundamentally differently to the regular school buildings. It is naturally lit (skylights and glass louvres), oriented to suit the climate (east-west) and cross-ventilated. You can see out of the classrooms. It is shaded all around and surrounded by benches. The school building is connected to the village electricity grid. Lighting and fans also allow use in the evening and during hot periods.
Generous private donations helped to finance the construction of this school. The operation of the difficult first school year is supported by a donation from the Häuser der Hoffnung – Schulbildung für Afrika e.V. to a considerable extent.
