A Call to Well-Levered Arms from the West...

Right then. I saw my science labs today. I didn't have my camera so I can't show them, but in summary, they aren't exactly supplied. The walls are plain: a far cry from the colourful and inspiring walls we make at home. In short, there's nothing.

I recently made an application for funding to get musical instruments for the school, so I'm hoping with fingers crossed that in a month or so there'll be drums, guitars, and a keyboard.

Sports-wise, the school is currently building a basketball pitch - you can see it in the picture below. The football pitch is scheduled for next year, so for now we play on gravel. There's one or two flat footballs lying around the place and I met a kid who was going up into the jungle to get some bamboo to make some goals but I've got no idea how he'll get them through the gravel. In short... there's very little for kids to do here. There's not much for teachers to do either, except play on the gravel or sit around a bukari chewing the fat. I started constructing a chess set for us. I got as far as Knights and Bishops before a colleague told me he already had one.

A representative of the Japanese government graced our school today to review the progress and meet students and staff. Pakshikha MSS was built with generous Japanese JICA funding. Those funds gave us our buildings and filled them with rudimentary furnishings – tables, chairs etc. The pride of the school is the MPH (Multi Purpose Hall), and it looks good. But the labs remain empty. The sports facilities are lean to say the least. There are no music facilities.

During my time here I intend to make as big a contribution as I can to the family of Pakshikha, and I'm finding out already that I am able to make a real difference. I feel obliged to make the application for music funds – I have access to funding streams that the school does not. I was able to computerize the timetabling because I have access to technology that the staff does not have, a benefit of my privileged western education. If all goes well, there'll be a website so the families don't have to travel to school for results (it can be a journey of days). And of course I'll gradually be introducing different methods of teaching and learning (more about the classroom later).

But here's the rub... I also have access to you guys. This is a call to arms, a mobilisation of forces, and an opportunity for you to do something small that'll make a big difference. There's a surplus of stuff back in Blighty and elsewhere; there's a surfeit out here. So if anybody who works in a school can gather up those posters that languish unseen behind the cupboards, roll them up into a tube and send them to me, I'd be immensely grateful.

You could go one step further... Imagine what would happen if a class set of Newton meters or prisms or protractors were depleted by a mere single item? Compare the barely detrimental impact on those classes to the positive impact that just one of these items would have to teaching and learning over here. One instead of none! Something instead of nothing! And they'd be here year after year.

I never really intended to write an entry like this, and I know it's a long shot, but a surprise parcel from a friend made me realise how easy it is for people back home to make a big difference here. It's like a charity lever... you apply a smidgeon of force from there and by the time it gets to here, the impact is massive.

If you do work in a school, perhaps you could approach your boss and talk it through. Or give the principal this blog message to read and see what they say. If you don't work in a school, you can of course still help. 

Here's the address again:

Pakshikha MSS

Gedu

Chukha

Bhutan

Send things if you can! Ask me if you 're not sure what's appropriate or useful. But not stuff for me - stuff for the school. I have more than everything I need.