Happy Easter!!

​Greetings from Koro,
 
We hope you are all doing very well!
 
In Koro the weather has been a bit different this year. In March, it is still cold at night like it would be in December. There is less wind and dust than usual at this time of the year.
 
The water crisis is at its peak now. Water arrives by donkey cart now as the wells are drying out one after another. Praise God that at Grace School we still have water in the well and our running water system is working as we use a water pump, water tank on the roof, and a generator. The Sawyer filter is a big help in providing the potable water we need for healthy teachers and students at the school. Praise God for teachers and students who are all very healthy.
 
Thank you for your prayers as we have stepped into a very new way of dealing with students who have been behind in their learning for a long time. We have organized extra classes to help them catch up with their lessons. We are severely challenged as many see us as a school for last minute help as they try to prepare for the high school entrance exam. To them we are an educational hospital instead of a regular school. Parents see us as a place to send their kids if they have problems catching up at the public school and when they are out of solutions for their education.
 
Even though we have a lot of good results helping these special kids, we do have a long way to go on accomplishing all of our dreams. We are now facing questions like whether we should take students who are so far behind? We struggle with this. On one hand our dream and aim is to help students (all students with no restrictions), and on another hand, enrolling very late students, some with very poor attitude, will slow down the rhythm of education and make us miss the quality we are targeting. However, we are strongly encouraged by the good number of grateful parents who are relentlessly testifying to the improvement they see in their kids. We thank God for those students who are impacted and pray that we have more of those.
 
For the building of the second set of three classrooms, we have all of the bricks and half of the sand to do the work and are expecting the gravel very soon. I wish we could start now but because the students are attending school in the first floor classrooms, it is not at all permitted to work on the second floor at the same time.
 
We do not yet have electricity at the new school site. The extension project Koro had has slowed down and they want customers to bear the cost. The school is 190 meters from the grid network, which may cost too much. We have asked EDM, the electric company, to evaluate the cost to connect the school to the grid. If the cost is too high we will explore solar panel options.
 
We are grateful and thank you for your partnership, which allows us to face the dally challenges in this educational work we do.
God bless you,
 
Ibrahima