2013-2015
SUSTAINED SUPPORT FOR ANTÓNIO HIGH SCHOOL SILVA PINTO DE RIBEIRA DAS PATAS
Antecedents
Since the 2007-2008 school year our school has set up, in close collaboration with the asbl Comité Spencer, a school assistance project for children of Cape Verdean origin. This project certainly aims to help students of Cape Verdean origin in their schooling, but it also aims to bring together two cultural communities living together in the Grand Duchy.
Thanks to the links thus created, a group of students from the Athenee, accompanied by three teachers, had participated, during the Pentecost holidays 2012, in a school exchange with the high school “Escola Secundária António Silva Pinto” of Ribeira das Patas of Cape Verde. During their stay in Cape Verde, the young people, together with high school students from Ribeira das Patas, planted trees and shrubs in this arid region of Cape Verde. This initiative was designed as an action to raise awareness of nature protection, sustainable development and citizen empowerment.
Our students felt challenged and decided to go beyond this symbolic gesture of solidarity and launch a real cooperation project. By mutual agreement with the management and the educational team of the António Silva Pinto high school, it was decided to focus our support on the educational, social and ecological aspects.
Our partnership project consisted of setting up educational, didactic and social facilities to offer real professional prospects to young people in the region of Porto Novo, Santo Antão, and development opportunities for the entire region.
Results of the project which ended in December 2015:
- Support for school fees, as well as fees for uniforms and sportswear for deserving but needy students.
- Funding for the purchase of textbooks for an entire class.
- Equipping a school canteen to provide a hot meal to students and covering the salaries of two ladies in the kitchen.
- Financing of a van for school transport to mountain villages.
- Purchase of a ventilated chemistry cabinet to store hazardous products.
- Equipment of two computer rooms with computers and staff training in library management
- Installation of a water pump to improve hygienic conditions in the kitchen and sanitary facilities.
- Equipping the school with photovoltaic panels to remedy recurrent power cuts and to improve teaching and administrative working conditions.
The project had a total budget of €155,596.30.
2016-2019
The Escola Industrial e Commercial of Mindelo-Guilherme Dias Chantre is located in the Center of Mindelo on the island of São Vicente.
The school also offers a 13th grade class for students who have completed their final year. The aim is to complete the initial training to allow better professional integration of young people.
In 2015/2016, the general education had 856 students divided into 37 classes from 7th to 10th grade. 217 students divided into 12 classes attended the technical education. The school offered six technical branches: Electricity-Electronics, Civil Engineering, Accounting and Administration, Graphic Arts, Computer Management and Mechanics.
Although the school is located in a rather affluent area, many students come from disadvantaged backgrounds on the outskirts of Mindelo. The school is making efforts to mobilize resources and help these young people reduce school fees.
The Escola Industrial e Commercial has an excellent reputation for training electrical technicians, but the equipment in technical devices is very old.
The school does not train specialists in solar energy, although this renewable energy offers interesting prospects for the economic development of the islands of São Vicente and Santo Antão.
The NGO A-AH will equip the school with photovoltaic panels. It will buy the material and provide the installation of the equipment.
A-AH will finance the specialized tools necessary for the practical training of specialist technicians in the installation and maintenance of photovoltaic systems.
The Industrial and Commercial School of Mindelo-Guilherme Dias Chantre will set up in its section “Generation, transmission and distribution of electricity” a practical specialization course “Photovoltaic systems”. The training will be aimed at students in 10th grade and students who have finished their schooling but wish to join this training.
The technical high school expects 20 candidates per year. This training will cover a period of 12 months. At the end of the training, a certificate of “installation and maintenance technician for photovoltaic systems”, approved by the Cape Verdean State, will be issued to the students.
The School will hire a qualified teacher as well as workshop supervisors, define the program and set up the training.
2020-2023
SCHOOL AID PROECT IN CAPE VERDE
“Education and promotion of renewable energy in Cape Verde“
Our 3rd project with Cape Verde is a continuation of previous projects with three previous schools that we have supported through social, ecological and educational actions:
We have had the chance to join a new partnering organisation:
The objectives
Our project supports access to education for particularly deserving students from poor families by offering free meals and school uniforms. It aims to promote vocational training in renewable energy, as a part of the socio-economic development of the country as well as creating jobs for young people.
The project, co-financed by MAEE, began on July 1, 2020 and will end on June 30, 2023. It has a total budget of €128,297.97.
contact persons: Marianne Dondelinger, Diane Thill, Marco Breyer
Escola Secundária António Silva Pinto de Ribeira das Patas, Santo Antão
The Escola Secundária António Silva Pinto is located in the center of Santo Antão Island, an arid region that suffers from severe periods of drought.
It is a public school and offers a standard secondary education program. In 2019, it had 335 students and 34 teachers, as well as 15 employees. The emphasis is on learning foreign languages, especially French and English, as well as economics and natural sciences. Most of the students come from poor families who own a tiny plot of land or are unemployed.
The region suffers from a high unemployment rate and is forced to cope with rural flight. The situation of poor families is made even more precarious due to the fact that it has not rained for two years. School dropouts among young girls are particularly frequent.
The NGO A-AH will pay for:
- the salary for a school cook
- the cost of free meals for 50 deserved and desperate students who may be forced to drop out of school for financial reasons
- the cost of school uniforms and sports shoes for 15 lacking, but particularly deserving students.
The previous project convinced us that helping disadvantaged students pushes them to double their efforts to obtain their final diploma and builds a significant social contribution which is especially welcomed for the families of the beneficiary students.
Escola Secundária Jorge Barbosa do Mindelo, São Vicente
The Escola Secundária António Silva Pinto is located in a particularly poor part of Mindelo, the capital of the island of São Vicente. The economic situation of the high majority of parents is very unstable. A large part of the children who attend high school come from single-parented families. Many students do not intake the sufficient amount of food, and have difficulties in concentration and discipline, causing delays in the curriculum and general learning deficits.
The school building was built in 2002 and the equipment was financed by the “Coopération Luxembourgeoise“. In 2019-2020, the high school had 1,845 students in grades 7-12, including 1,028 girls and 817 boys divided into 62 classes (32 in the morning, 30 in the afternoon), as well as 121 teachers. This high school is therefore one of the most important high schools in the country in terms of population size.
The NGO A-AH will pay for:
- the salary for a school cook
- the cost of free meals for 150 desperate but deserving students who are at risk of dropping out due to financial reasons
- the cost of school uniforms and sports shoes for 25 deserved students
Escola Industrial e Commercial do Mindelo -Guilherme Dias Chantre, São Vicente
The Escola Industrial e Commercial is located in the centre of Mindelo on the island of São Vicente. With its 1,444 students and 143 teachers as of 2019-2020, the Escola Industrial e Commercial do Mindelo-Guilherme Dias Chantre high school is the largest technical high school on the island of São Vicente. Since 2018, the school has set up vocational training in renewable energy for a class of young adults aged 18-35.
This training program is in response to a real need for solar technicians in Cape Verde, especially in the two islands of São Vicente and Santo Antão, where our NGO operates. This region has a lack of technicians capable of installing and maintaining solar panels.
The introduction of renewable energy training at a professional level opens up new job opportunities for young people and offers interesting prospects for the economic development of the two islands.
Unfortunately, the school‘s technical and computer equipment is very old.
The NGO A-AH will pay for:
- the acquisition of computer and teaching equipment for vocational training in renewable energy.
As part of the previous project (2018-2019), our NGO equipped the school with photovoltaic panels.
With the acquisition of computer and teaching equipment adapted to current educational needs, the vocational training could offer high-standard education in renewable energy.
The Center for Renewable Energies and Industrial Maintenance (CERMI) of Praia
Benefitting from regional and national recognition, CERMI is a centre for the promotion of renewable energy and teaching of skills in renewable energy for all the islands of Cape Verde and countries within the region. The building was financed by the “Coopération Luxembourgeoise“.
The NGO A-AH will pay for:
- the registration fees, work uniforms and transport costs.
- the food and health insurance for 20 deserving young people from Cape Verde, who are either school dropouts or unemployed, and who will follow a short, level-3 vocational training within CERMI in the field of renewable energy. Priority will be given to girls, who are often forced to drop out of school for financial reasons and therefore remain absent in this economic sector.
CERMI has the equipment, skills and legal status to offer this renewable energy training at a professional level. The goal of our partnership with CERMI is to create jobs in the energy sector and will play a significant role in the fight against youth unemployment.