Abandoned abbattoir turned into school

Tatenda Gapare/Tinomuda Chakanyuka Sunday News Reporters
EIGHT-YEAR-OLD Thabiso Mdlongwa wakes up to beat the first cock-crow, washes his face, puts on his uniform and tucks his books in an old plastic bag, before trudging over hill, valley and flatland for close to 8km to get to his school.

His motivation, a mutual one among his colleagues, is the desire to rise from the backwardness of West Acre and climb the social ladder to higher social strata, where pastures are often said to be green.

The aptly coined saying “Education is the key to success” rings in Thabiso’s head and is the soundtrack to the arduous pursuit of his dreams, a pursuit replete with challenges.

While his counterparts in urban areas enjoy the comfort of nurturing their dreams in plush, nicely built, comfortable and well-furnished schools, Thabiso incubates his in an abandoned abattoir which has been turned into a primary school.

That, however, does not deter him, but rather gives him the impetus to continue dreaming of brighter days.

While visitors in the area may see nothing more than a derelict and abandoned abattoir, the West Acre community on the outskirts of Bulawayo see Tsetse Primary School, where their children’s ambitions are carved. They see an avenue through which their children will escape the jaws of poverty.

Tsetse Primary School, a satellite facility for Mbonqane Primary School, was established in 2005 following the land reform programme which saw a number of indigenous Zimbabweans settling in the West Acre area. Mbhonqane Primary School is about 15km from the West Acre area and prior to the establishment of Tsetse, children from the area would walk the distance to attend class.

Struggling to bear the sight of their children walking an average of 30km daily Mbonqane villagers in West Acre mooted the idea of setting up a school closer to their area. With minimum resources to set up a proper school, while at the same time compelled by the urgency of their situation, turning an abandoned abattoir into a temporary structure to house the school was the only immediate option they had.

In the decade that the satellite school has been in existence, it has grown from an enrolment of less than 100 children to 233 children from Early Childhood Development (ECD) to Grade Seven.The school boasts a staff complement of eight teachers.

The 223 children share the six rooms available at the old abattoir, while the seventh room, formerly a counter for the abattoir butchery, was converted into the school head’s office.

Two cattle feeding sheds were turned into classrooms, as the community tried the best they could to make the learning environment as comfortable as possible for their children. However, one class has to contend with learning from outside, under a tree as the facilities are not adequate.

School Development Committee (SDC) chairperson at Tsetse Primary School, Mr Fanuel Mlilo said plans were underway to build proper facilities for the school at a site about 800 metres from where the school is presently located.

“Since the community had no school we decided to house ourselves in the structure left by West Acre abattoir when they moved to another place close by. Before, some of our children used to learn in town while others used to walk more than 15 kilometres going to the nearest school.

“After seeing the challenges that our children endured just to get an education we approached the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education, who gave us the green light to set up a satellite school.

“We are still a satellite school to Mbonqane (primary school) but we hope that after we finish constructing proper facilities we will be given the full status of a school,” he said.

Mr Mlilo however, said they were facing challenges in mobilising resources to finish construction of the new school which started last year. He appealed to well-wishers to assist.

“We have done what we could but what is left now requires money, which we don’t have. We are appealing to Government and other well-wishers to assist us with money to buy cement, door and window frames and other implements. We have moulded bricks and manpower for the actual building,” he said.

One of the community members who is actively involved in the construction of the school, Mr Gibson Mpofu said as a community they had sent application letters to different donors appealing for assistance to finish building the school and have been waiting in vain for responses.

“We have no money to finish building the school because we are part time workers, jobs are scarce so we applied to different donors so that they can help us but none of them responded to our applications,” he said.

Acting head at Tsetse Primary School, Mr Trueman Ncube noted that despite setting up of Tsetse Primary School to ease the long distances walked by children, some pupils at the school still endured long distances to and from school, which he said had resulted in poor performance and a high rate of drop outs.

“The major problem that we have is that children walk long distances from their homes to school, because of this they tend to arrive at school very late and the lessons would have started. Some of them do not attend lessons because they arrive late for school after walking long distances. This affects their performance in class. Every term we have about eight or so pupils dropping out due to various reasons among them the long distances they walk to school,” said Mr Ncube.

Mr Ncube bemoaned the shortage of classrooms at the makeshift school which he said forced some children to learn from outside.

He said the school was also confronted with shortages of learning material, forcing teachers to improvise on numerous occasions.

“The learning material is not enough and in most cases teachers have to go out of their way to source material for the children. Further, parents fail to pay fees for their children and they end up in huge arrears which also contributes to school dropouts every term,” he said.

Teachers at the school are not spared the challenges as the school does not have accommodation facilities for staff, forcing them to commute daily from Bulawayo and back at an average cost of $4 per day.

Bulawayo provincial education director Mr Dan Moyo, under whose jurisdiction the school lies, said Government would do what it can to assist the initiative by members of the West Acre community to a school for their children.

“I am aware that a school is being built at the South west of Tsetse primary and for it to be built we looked for members of the community who partnered with the SDC to help them build the school for the children. We will continue supporting them in every way we can and I personally would want to commend them for the initiative,” he said.

Authorities at Tsetse hope to attain a Zimbabwe Schools Examination Council (Zimsec) examination centre status, to save their children from walking long distances to write their final examinations. Albert Einstein once opined that “The sole purpose of education is to open the way to thinking and knowing, the school is an outstanding organ for the people’s education and it must serve that end exclusively.”