BRIDGES TO SCHOOL
One of the mythical phrases of Walt Disney, the American creator of the world’s most famous cartoons, was: ‘if you can dream it, you can do it’. And that is what the NGO SOGOLO has achieved: it dreamt of improving the lives of the children of Mkasanga, allowing them to go to school safely during the rainy season. And to achieve this, in line with SDG 4 ‘quality education’, it dreamt of the possibility of building a bridge to go to school.
The children of the Lwanga Valley share many dangers, as is the case in the documentary ‘On the way to school’ by French director Pascal Plisson. It is a documentary that tells the true story of four children, Jackson, Carlitos, Zahira and Samuel, who have to face a multitude of adversities and dangers every day to get to school. These children live in four very different parts of the world (Kenya, Argentina, Morocco and India), but they share the same desire to learn and are aware that only education will open the door to a better future. Likewise, the children of Mkasanga have to go to school every day, dodging streams and fords in the rainy season, running with one of those dangers that crocodiles are in wetlands.
After more than a year of raising the 10,000 euros needed to build the bridge and obtaining the materials and trained personnel in the area, construction began in November. With the help of Rafael Moreno, civil engineer and partner of SOGOLO, construction began.
In the area, the most complicated and expensive thing is to get the materials. Transport has been very expensive, but in the end it was achieved. The whole community of Mkasanga and the surrounding area went to inaugurate the bridge, together with the Queen’s Minister (induna). In fact, when it rains, this project will have an impact on the children of the school, but also on the whole area. That’s why they thank us. You can see a news item in a magazine thanking the Pamplona Bar Association in Majadahonda Magazine, as well as other collaborators:
Finally, we would like to thank all those who have collaborated in this project. We are a small NGO, with direct action and small collaborative projects. In Zambia we are asked for help, from the Board of Directors we analyse the requests and prioritise them, we look for funding and we execute the projects, in direct collaboration with the people of Zambia. Our philosophy and raison d’être is justified, according to the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2019, Esther Dufflo, with small projects that have a real and direct impact on the lives of poor people. It’s about small actions, the Honda-effect, that have a positive impact on communities in regions as poor as South Luangwa in Zambia.
