Nkurenkuru Hostel Students stand up for themselves!!!

June 8th 2010

Today we were all shocked and surprised when the hostel learners went on strike because of how they are being treated. They refused to eat today then marched around town with signs while singing and dancing. What an amazing sight!!! It was such a blessing to see these children standing up for themselves. The story goes that Pastor Karoyeva promised to bring food back from a recent trip and didn’t make good on his promise. This incensed the students and the organized themselves for this strike. After working for over a year trying to help these hostel learners it was a wonderful thing to see them stand up for themselves. They have promised to do it again if their demands are not met. The Mr. Karoyeva has blamed the uprising on the hostel mothers, saying they are the people that instigated the learners to do this. In a hostel committee meeting that day (which is unheard of to have a meeting on such short notice) Mr. Karoyeva wouldn’t hear of the problems at hand and refused to do anything about it. He then left the meeting in an angry mood. The same thing happened the next day in a meeting with the principal and teachers when these problems came up, only it came from another teacher who became extremely livid when people started asking questions about what is happening with the money and why aren’t the kids being fed very well. This same teacher was there the afternoon the students decided to strike, telling them they would call the police on them and take them to jail. What an encouraging role model! Rachel and I felt good when we were able to talk to the learners and give them courage that what they are doing is perfectly legal. We think this helped them to continue with what they wanted to do. Evidently the hostel has been given NAD $126000 by the ministry, plus some NAD$27000 from other funds, bringing the grand total to NAD $153000. For some reason this money is completely controlled by the Mr. Karoyeva (others call him “pastor” however I have stopped doing so) and nobody is willing to take him on within the town. We have no idea why except that he and others in the committee are skimming off the top and have been doing so for years, in conjunction with people from the ministry also skimming off the top before the money even gets to the hostel committee. This would explain why the government has not questioned where the money has gone and why nothing has ever been done. At any rate the hostel saga continues but this time it’s the learners fighting back…can we have an amen to that.

Below are some pictures of the hostel learners parading around town.

Since we wrote the above words in this blog the Minister of Education came to visit Rachel's school and promised to get the kids new mattresses and blankets and push for building a new hostel on the school grounds. This is wonderful news as he is the highest level person in the country to take notice of these problems and we hope that he makes good on his proposals for the sake of these poor children.