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Prototype Child-Friendly School, Kondoma: SIERRA LEONE 

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Article 25 is working with Foster + Partners, Buro Happold and the NGO Save the Children to develop a new environmentally appropriate Prototype Rural School to be constructed in eastern Sierra Leone. The construction will be allied with a strong educational programme, providing appropriate opportunities to the development of available local resources and skills relevant to the increasing needs of the Sierra Leone.

In August 2009, Article 25 professional volunteer Toby Ware with Gareth Lewis of Buro Happold and Lindsay Bush of Foster + Partners carried out a three week Feasibility Trip to the border territories and have carried out a detailed assessment of the community’s needs, the appropriate building materials and techniques, and the skills available in the community. As part of these consultations a modelling workshop was conducted with children and teachers to ascertain how they perceived their ideal school environment.

Following the successful feasibility trip, designs are now being developed for the new child-friendly prototype school with volunteers from Fosters + Partners and Buro Happold.

[ project location ]

This project is located in Kondoma, in Kailahun region, eastern Sierra Leone.

[ project partner ]

Article 25 have teamed up with Foster + Partners, Buro Happold and the NGO Save the Children, a charitable organisation working around the world to right the fundamental wrongs that affect children and change their lives for the better.

[ project type ]

We will design and develop a school which is environmentally appropriate, built using local materials by the skills of the community. The construction will be allied with a strong educational programme to ensure that the improved schools generate an improved educational experience for the students. The project aims to improve the current school design standards by making the educational buildings more child friendly.

[ problem addressed ]

Despite the end of the civil war in 2002, the people of Sierra Leone continue the struggle to rebuild their lives.  The UN’s classification of Sierra Leone as one of the poorest countries in the world only hints at the reality; one in four children die before their fifth birthday, access to clean water is rare, simple healthcare is unavailable to most, and only a small proportion of children attend school. The war hit the rural areas on the border with Liberia and Guinea particularly hard, with schools being targeted by rebels to recruit children into their armies. The schools themselves were often destroyed or left derelict. The impact on a generation of children was severe.

There is a great hunger for education, with many young adults enrolling for the schooling they were denied during the war. The existing school buildings are often in poor condition or entirely inadequate.