Just in case you may have missed their introduction back in November, I have copied the message from our team of students below:

Hello,

Thank you for posting our message again! In this message we will give an update on our research. Also, we have a few questions which we hope someone can answer.
For the energy system, we are thinking about solar panels. That way the village will have an independent energy system which is sustainable. The disadvantage of this system is that it costs a lot of money to purchase such sun panels. There need to be a budget for this. In the end, the sun panels will turn out to be cheaper than connecting to the existing energy source.
For the building materials and methods, we are thinking about thick walls of sun-dried bricks. This is a cheap building method, and by building thick walls the classrooms are well isolated.
These are just our first thoughts, we still have to work out our plans. To do this, we need an answer on the following questions:
-Is the building going to be used only as school, or also for other purposes? Is it for example necessary to build a kitchen in the school?
-Does the rest of the village have access to an energy system? If so, what kind of energy system is this?
-How much electricity is needed, where is it going to be used for? Are there going to be machines like computers or is it just for lighting?
-Who are going to build the school? People from the village itself, or people that have to be hired?

So far our questions, we hope someone is willing to answer them. Also, we hope to get some reactions on our thoughts so far. If we are completely on the wrong way we want to know, so we can form a new plan. We will try to update regularly on this website.

Kind regards,
Joris, Meghan, Sanne, Yvonne and Zaher

Hi Sanne-

Great to hear from you and see how you are progressing. I am certain that Rev Teh will be checking in shortly to respond to your questions in more detail. I sent him your message via SMS. I will respond based on what I know:

1. I think that your question of using the building for multiple purposes is a good one. This may be a source of potential income during the time that school is out of session. I think it is definitely something worth consideration.

Having a kitchen at the school I also believe would be a good idea, but Rev Teh can speak to this better than I can.

2. Part of the village has access to electricity. The current classroom do not have electricity. It can be routed to the school building but I believe another transformer would need to be installed at a home close to the school from what Rev. Teh described to me.

3. With respect to power at the school-electricity would be used for lighting, also to possibly power computers in the future. Right now there are two computers located at the GMM office (not at the school) so for anyone that wants training on them -these people go to the GMM office.

4. People from the village have built the existing classrooms. Rev Teh can speak to whether or not others were hired to help. On this I am not sure.

Did you look at wind technology at all when considering a power source? I wonder also if something like that might be feasible.

Great to hear from you-please don't hesitate to ask if you have additional questions or would like feedback on your ideas.

Happy New Year-

Jennifer

Happy New Year to you all. I thank you for taking the time and working on this project. Let me take time to answer your questions as best as I can. Jennifer our village facilitator has answered some points and I think I can add more details. For the energy system, part of the village is electrified, but if the school has to be electrified, a transformer has to be placed in a building distandt from the school and cables have to be connected right to the school a distance above 500 metres. For the solar panel, it is a good suggestion here but we do not know the cost. I think only two or three people use it this part of our country and people keep telling us it is good. If we have it we will not go to great pains covering the electric bills month by month. As for the other wind generator Jennifer talks about we only hear of it and have not seen it. The option can still be a good one.
Building Materials
Building thick walls with sun dried bricks is a cheap way of building here. This way we will have a lot of community support. The parents of the pupils can help mould the bricks, wellwishers in the village and lobbying the local church to also support. Building with mud bricks is the most common way of construction here.
The building will not only be used as a school but for other purposes. There has to be vacational training centre in art work, craft etc for the youths, women etc if things work out the way we like. If we also get computers and construct buildings there, the computer training institute will be transfered there. Right now GMM has only two computers and students are crowding, but they are stationed at the GMM office. Communities meetings and worshops can also be held at the school. This has to be done in a way not to disturb the studenst studying.
Part of the village is electrified and it is by AES Sonel Cameroon, www.aes.com/sonel. The elctricity is going to be used for lighting in the school and in the near future for computers.
Building the school
The school has a building committee that worked for the construction of the two semi permanent structure. This community has a chairman, secretary, Treasures, financial secretary and members, the Director of Goodness and Mercy Missions, the Chairman of the local Baptist church and the chairman of the village council. When building something at a larger scale we enlist the services of the Missionary Builders, a local based organization with technicians constructing churches, halls, not for profit buildings etc, at a negotiable price. Here is a link www.beifacig.webs.com. The excarvation has to be made with free local support and other minor things connected to the construction. If the funds are not up to how we can employ the missionary builders, we will start lobbying for village support, that is for bricklayers who want to help on a compensation and carpenters alike. This has to be a last option for the missionary builders can do excellent work.
Finally, you are really going the right way. Thank you for all your work. If you still need more details from us or any other thing for explanation, we will be just too glad to provide.

Hello!

Here is a message from us again. We are working very hard on the project, considering all the options on building materials and sustainable energy. We have found out that solar energy as well as wind energy are suitable as energy source for Jinkfuin. It is however very difficult to find cheap solar and wind systems, so we are afraid that it will be too expensive for the village. But we are still figuring everything out, we will put a cost estimation in the report.
While working on the project we came with some questions:

1. How many classrooms are needed? In the assignment it says 3, but we thought that we had read somewhere else that there are 4 classrooms needed. And also, what other rooms are needed in the school? Besides the classrooms we thought of a small office and a kind of common room, where the computers are placed. But maybe we are missing rooms here, or maybe you intend to place the computers in the classroos. Let us know!

2. In the classrooms that are already there, of what material is the roof builded? And are the windows in that building made of glass?

3. How is the water supply organized in the village? Is there a water and sewage system on which toilets and sinks can be connected, or is the water extracted from a well?

We hope you have time to answer our questions!
Greetings to everyone there,

Joris, Meghan, Sanne, Yvonne and Zaher

Hi Team!
I am happy for all what you are doing for the school. We count so much on you. To answer your questions we said we have 2 semi permanent buildings. We thought of adding four. There has to be classes 1-6. The rooms are built of sun dried bricks and roofed with wooden plank and corrugated sheets. There can be added an office for the headmaster, a staff room and a room for the computers. The computers have to be in a room by themselves.
The windows in the building are made with wooden plank not classes. We have pipe borne water in the village that can easily be drawn to the school.
Also for your interest, Gary Haikney from Newcastle, Britain volunteered with us at the school, helped with some textbooks. He is been back to England. He can help much in giving you some details about the school if you wish to contact him. His email address is gary_haikney@hotmail.com. Any other questions, I will entertain.

Hello! My name is Danielle. I am brand new to Nabuur and would love to help you out with this project. I live in the United States and I hold a master's degree in Environmental Policy and Management with a concentration in Natural Resources. Please let me know what I can do to assist you. :)

Hello Danielle,
I am happy you are here. We greet you from Cameroon. The World Students are already completing the project proposal and I think funding document or research on low cost building information. What I think you can do now is research potential funding sources whom we think can aid with the building of the school. Also think up ways in which we can approach them, things like that. Any other questions I will entertain. I look forward to working with you.

Hi Rev. Teh!

Thank you for the warm welcome. I would be happy to assist you with this. One organization I can think of, off the top of my head that might be able to help is The Earth Island Institute. According to their web site though they generally do not seem to support projects that do not have their operations in the United States even though a lot of their environmental work is international. However, since I am in the United States and I would be helping you out, maybe they might consider assisting with the project. It says that Earth Island is not a "grant-making" organization. What they do is invest in your project and then in turn it becomes an Earth Island Project of their organization. The person who is the Director of Project Support is Susan Kamprath. Her email is skamprath@earthisland.org. Check out this web site and see what you think. http://www.earthisland.org/index.php/support/

Danielle

Thank you for the great concern. I really enjoy the way we are going to work. I think you can contact the organization. They can partner. All we want is the school to be built and also that the children be helped. That is all it. If this is done, we will really be happy. You can also contact me through this email revteh@gmmafrica.org. I really enjoy working with you.

Ok, I will go ahead and contact The Earth Island Institute and see what they say. I will copy and paste a link with your project information here on Nabuur. This will be a stretch because I am the only one here in the United States and since I am not the project director we may not qualify, but we can try. If we don't qualify for their help, I will try at least to get a recommendation from them regarding an organization that might be able to assist us.

Thank you much. I count so much on your expertise.

You are very welcome. I'll let you know when I hear back from them. I'll also look at a few other organizations including Trust Africa and Friends of Cameroon.

Thank you so much.

Rev. Teh,

I got a response back from Earth Island Institute. Here is what they said:

Hi Danielle,

Thank you for contacting Earth Island Institute. Unfortunately we do not
provide monetary support to our projects. If you are looking for a fiscal
sponsor that provides grants I would recommend searching on the fiscal
sponsor directory at www.fiscalsponsordirectory.org

Good luck,
Lilias

Lilias Pettit-Scott
EINS Programs Associate
_________________________

Earth Island Institute
2150 Allston Way, Suite 460
Berkeley, CA 94704
lilias@earthisland.org
Phone: (510) 859-9141
Fax: (510) 859-9091

I will continue contacting some of the other nonprofits here especially the ones who focus on Africa and hopefully we can find someone who can help. We are facing a tough economy here in the States, but we might have a chance of getting help from Friends of Cameroon. They work with Peace Core volunteers too.

Danielle