Wichita Falls North Rotary club is one of several participating clubs for this project. WFNRC, in partnership with the Grahamstown and Jackson Hole Rotary Clubs in South Africa received Rotary Foundation approval for a $362,500 Matching Global Grant to install new water systems at 6 schools in drought stricken area of South Africa.
The Rotary Clubs are working with these 6 shantytown of Makhanda/Grahamstown, East Cape in South Africa. Because of the drought and unreliable municiple water system, toilets can't be flushed and schools must be shut down until water is available. The intent of the project is to install plumbing systems and tanks to store municiple water and captured rain water to be used when municiple water pressure is unavailable to keep the schools operating. When water systems are not operating, many students in these higher elevation schools do poorly even to the point of dropping out completely.
In South Africa, students take a matrix exam upon completing 12th grade. Because these 6 schools closed so frequently due to water problems students in these schools are more likely to score poorly. Unemployment in South Africa is 37% when those discouraged and no longer seeking work because they did poorly on the exam or dropped out completely before grade 12 are included. The projects goal is to ensure that teaching days are never lost because toilets can't flush.
The project includes 4 primary schools and 2 secondary high schools.