shloboe boe
Thupeyo Muleya, [email protected]
BEITBRIDGE Rural District Council has partnered with communities in the Mahuhushe area under Ward 15 to build a new primary school that will enhance service delivery in the education sector.
So far, with the support of Bitumen World, they have constructed an Early Childhood Development (ECD) Block. The company donated 10,000 bricks, 100 bags of cement, 50 cubic metres of quarry stone, and 50 breeding goats to villagers in Ward 15, where it was mining the granite rock being used to construct part of the Beitbridge-Harare highway.
Acting Beitbridge RDC Chief Executive Officer, Mr Peter Ncube, said the donation was part of the company’s Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives.
He explained that the community is now working on constructing a staff house and toilets, which are expected to be completed by March this year.
“Bitumen has done its part by helping them build an ECD block, and now the community, working with the council and other partners, has undertaken to build more infrastructure at the school,” said Mr Ncube.
“Community members have pledged labour and other materials to complete the project, and we are providing additional material resources and technical skills.”
Mr Ncube stated that under the first phase, they are building a staff house and toilets.
“By October, we should have made progress on constructing another classroom block. Ideally, you need two classroom blocks, one staff cottage, water, and toilets to open a fully-fledged school,” he said.
Mr Ncube explained that the community had agreed to build an ECD block first to reduce the walking distance of over 5km that infants currently travel to either Shambwe or Lutumba primary schools.
He added that the school had been registered as an examinations centre, with the target of holding its first sitting of Grade Seven examinations by the end of this year.
Mr Ncube further mentioned that after consultations with community members, they had decided to expedite the construction works on-site.
“Besides the Mahuhushe project, we are also working in partnership with World Vision Zimbabwe to build two new classroom blocks at Limpopo Number 14 (Beitbridge West) and Tshaswingo Primary School (Beitbridge East),” he said.
“Our partners are providing the building materials, while we are responsible for the foundations, and we are almost done with the procurement processes so that civil works can begin. In addition to that, we are working on registering six other schools under our jurisdiction.”
Online Reporter