Help us Build Manambaro Lycee

Lomba builds a school for his hometown!

Manambaro is Lomba’s hometown. Back in the day, Lomba remembers that there wasn’t a High School in the village. After finishing primary school, he had to move to the nearest town, Fort-Dauphin, in order pursue his education. Lomba has been working with us since 2001, and is now our Head of Construction.

In addition to his cheerful personality, Lomba brought with him a fantastic new school design that we still use up to this day. Prior to 2010, the schools we built were made with wood. Lomba decided to challenge this and came up with a new school design that would be built with concrete – a much more sustainable approach that ensures that schools are safer for longer.

He has now built over nine concrete school buildings and has worked on the repair of two others. He is now “very happy to be able to give back to the community” with the construction of a new school, and believes that the new generation of children in Manambaro are very lucky to benefit from an easier access to education.

What are we up to?

The construction work on the new classrooms in Manambaro has been advancing at great speed. The first school building got itself a freshly painted roof, and has been receiving 160 students to start the new school year.

The construction on the second building is getting close to completion. The construction team has successfully built the raised concrete platforms for the teachers. The window sills have been built, and both the shutters and doors have been attached and painted.

The second block of latrines is also due to be finalised shortly. The drainage has now been installed, and only the vault door used to empty faecal matters remains to be sealed.

The international pioneer volunteers have completed an array of tasks to support the work of the construction team. Together, they have painted all the walls of the school building, with only one coat of paint remaining to be done. They have also built all the wooden benches, teachers’ desks and chairs that will be filling the brand new classrooms. The High School students were enthusiastic, as they helped bringing the benches inside and line them up ready for the new school year.

The volunteers also provided great support in the building of the latrines, with the construction of the concrete steps leading to the latrine doors. In addition, one of the international volunteers designed a concrete platform for the girls urinals, located at the back of the latrine block. The slightly elevated platform is there to ensure that urine will go directly into the evacuation hole. Each platform has two additional blocks of concrete on the top to indicate where the feet should go. This clever and simple design will ensure that the girls will know how to use the urinals intuitively.

Construction is currently not taking place, but will resume in December with the building of both the blackboards and concrete cupboards, the rendering of the floors and veranda, as well as putting the locks on all doors and windows.