Maggie goes to Cameroon
Program: Boarding school
Blueprint: Maggie goes to
Location: Odin Oto, Zouameyong, Cameroon
Budget: € x
Timeline: August, 2018
Project description
Through media exposure Maggie Program came into contact with IRIE-world, a Belgian non-profit who’s active in Cameroon. They asked for our help in constructing a temporary, insulated, instant structure, in other words a Maggie Shelter, for the dormitory for the boarding school of Les Lionceaux. Of course we were more than happy to lend a hand. Boarding schools really make a difference for many children in these areas since schools are often up to 3 hours walking due to the wide spread population.
Partners
Through the media exposure that Maggie enjoyed during the past couple of years, IRIE-world i.v.z.w. -a Belgian non-profit NGO that is active in the area of Zouameyong in the past 7 years- came in contact with us for a concept to save a future of 64 children annually. The concept is to build up an instant, insulated, upgradable, and semi-fixture dormitory for the boarding school of Les Lionceaux. The fixture dorm will be ready in 2021 funded by the Flemish government but til then we will lose 3 year and many children can fall into child labor or child-marrige instead of attending a school that can improve their future opportunities.
The boarding school is a saviour for many dropping out children e.g. Caroline. Caroline is a young girl that has to walk 3 hours everyday to school. This time consuming forced her parents to drop her out of school so she can work and perform the households activities. Her father agreed that she can be back to school under one condition: “Attending a Boarding school.”
Because of the particular circumstances of wide spreading population over the rainforest of southern Cameroon the children have an average of 4 hours per day walking to the school. There are many children in the same situation like Caroline thus Maggie Program have committed to build 2 Maggie’s produced by our partners (consulted and designed by DMOA and manufactured by the Vermako), to ship them to Kribi, Cameroon and then to build them up by the locals and assistance of four fellow architects sponsored by DMOA. This will occur from 22 to 31 August.
One more advantage of the Maggie is the life-span of 15 years. The Maggies will be easily transformed into a library and a computer lab after the inauguration of the aforementioned dormitories in 2021. This transformation would turn the Maggies into a social hub where locals can get advantages of a library in an access distance.
