A gift of a bike to alleviate the burden of students walking long distances to school

Students in rural villages face so many challenges that make impact their learning experience. Among these challenges is the long distances most of them have to walk to get to school. Imagine walking three miles to to school every day! Some students have to start walking at six in the morning to be able to get to school by 8am. They often get home late when it’s almost dark and they are very exhausted yet there are chores to be done at home and homework to complete.

During my visit, I had casual chat with each class trying to listen to our students’ experiences at Hope  Academy- their concerns, needs, challenges at home, what they like about the school and any suggestions they may have on how to improve their academic and social experience at Hope.

Some of their biggest challenges include: walking long distances taking up to 2 hrs to get to school, lack of paraffin to study at night, some parents not caring to support their education, lack of clean water in their villages, etc etc. But overall they are happy to have an opportunity to be in school despite the challenges.

URF has attempted to address the problem of walking distances by giving bicycles to students. A bicycle is given to two students who come from same village to use it together. In the picture above is Amon, a senior one student who received a gift of a bicycle from his sponsor. Amon is one of those students have to walk 4 miles to get to school.

There are many students who still have to endure the burden of these distances. We hope that other generous individual will give kids a gift of a bicycle. Bikes costs $95 dollars. Any help will be greatly appreciated.