Education Nigeria Project #49187

School renovation for 1,700 children in Nigeria

by HUMAN-Stiftung

School renovation for 1,700 children in Nigeria

Project Report | Jul 9, 2025
Morning-Starlight-School "Small but beautiful"

By Karlheinz Neumann | Founder and Project Leader

Certificates at school-year-end

With just over 40 students, Morning-Starlight-School is one of the very small schools in Africa’s most populous country, with very high growth rates. In contrast, the public Afikpo Primary School, with its 1,700 students, where we have carried out some renovation activities.

The Morning-Starlight-School has three Nursery classes and six primary school classes. In addition to the school administration, there are nine teachers. Many different subject areas are taught like English, mathematics, computer science, science, social studies, language comprehension, quantitative reasoning, basic agricultural skills, home economics, physical education, cultural studies, creative arts, science, civics, Christian religious studies, music, and dance.

Why do we support this small school?

Some large public schools have a lower reputation. Very basic infrastructure, large numbers of children, and the resulting safety deficiencies are often difficult to manage. What are the advantages of small schools?

The curriculum is comprehensive and offers children the foundation to discover their talents and abilities, to specialize later, and at the same time develop a holistic understanding of life.
Due to the low number of students, children with learning disabilities receive special support from their teachers.
The children feel safe at school, especially thanks to the planned construction of a fence.
They find a quiet learning environment with a playground and sports field.
We use whiteboards and markers, while most public schools use painted blackboards and chalk.
Exam papers are recorded electronically, and parents can review them after the exams and help their children at home. In public schools, everything is written on the blackboard. Therefore, no handouts can be distributed.

There is still considerable need for improvements at the school, especially in infrastructure. We plan to erect a fence around the school grounds with a central entrance gate. The wall of the playground, completed last year, will be plastered and decorated with pictures. A small shop will be built where parents can purchase snacks, drinks, and cookies for their children.
We will use the available resources for the benefit of the children. We thank Pastor Richard Awah, who is providing part of his church for this school and is committed to education in Nigeria.

We thank you for your outstanding support to make all this happen.

Children in classroom

Children having fun at the playground

Sport-Activities-Inter-House-Sport-Day

Continue construction of School-Safety-Wall

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Mar 11, 2025
Medical care for people in need

By Karlheinz Neumann | Founder and Project Leader

One of our employees after truck accident

In 2024, we were again able to treat health problems for well over 50 people through the emergency medical aid program in Abakaliki. For some patients, the hospital stay involved an operation and a stay of several weeks.

A great deal of effort was incurred in treating the employees from the water factory after the traffic accident in November 2024. In total, just over €16,000 was used for emergency medical aid. An incredible contribution to the local people. Here are some concrete examples of how individual people were helped.

Onyenaturuchi, a 6-year-old boy, was presented to the hospital at the beginning of October with a severely swollen body (including his genital area). He was diagnosed with kidney failure. After several blood plasma transfusions, he was able to be discharged sometime later. However, the treatment must be continued in 2025.

Esther, a 17-year-old young woman who we have been supporting for several years with her kidney disease, became pregnant. Due to her kidney disease and her pregnancy, she received more intensive care. It was therefore a high-risk pregnancy.

The birth was a planned Caesarean section. She and her daughter Florish are developing wonderfully.

Faith is a 13-year-old girl from the sponsorship program. She has epilepsy and has managed her seizures without medication so far. In September 2024, she was brought to Abakaliki hospital in a coma. She was in a coma for more than a week. During this time, she was given medication. As a result of being in bed for several weeks, she got a huge bed sore on her buttocks. This is why she had to undergo surgery afterwards. She learned to walk again with the help of physiotherapy. Since January 2025, she has been going back to school as planned.

The people affected cannot afford the treatment, which is why this support is so important. We thank all of our loyal donors.

Esther with her newborn baby

Faith, epilepsy and surgery

Onyenaturuchi with kidney issues

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Nov 12, 2024
Success story: One year clean water for Ebonyi State

By Karlheinz Neumann | Founder and Project Leader

Happy people with our clean water

What began with a vague idea at the end of 2021 was structurally implemented in 2022/2023 and put into production in October 2023: Clean drinking water for Ebonyi State.
We have regularly reported on this challenging and extensive undertaking, so here is a brief review after one year of operation.

Planning, construction and installation: Due to the time constraints, the planning was carried out within 8 weeks. That was very ambitious, as we had to design a large photovoltaic system, the bottling hall and create a detailed schedule and cost plan. As it turned out later, however, that was the easiest part of the project. Apart from the technical installation of the PV system, things mostly went smoothly.
Testing and start of operations: The first challenges came up during the test phase and the start of production. Difficulties in finding staff, technical problems with the PV system due to a lack of specialist knowledge on site, procurement of materials, customer acquisition. With hard work, luck and skill, we were able to start production in October 2023.
Production October 2023 to March 2024: By far the most difficult phase with new findings almost every day, enormous effort but also often frayed nerves. Bad packaging material, price issues with the water union, rising inflation with high diesel prices for the trucks, truck accidents, technical defects in the trucks due to bad roads, demands from staff for more money (even though we pay better than other companies), blackmail during delivery, lack of transport capacity.
We were sometimes at a loss as to whether we should expand or reduce production. We decided to buy more trucks to keep production and sales at a high level. But the situation in February/March was borderline.
Production April to September 2024: Although the water was literally "snatched out of our hands" during the dry season, we were happy when the rainy season came, and the production volume could be reduced in order to "take a breather" and work on structural issues.

Conclusion: We paid the price for our mistakes and imagined many things to be simpler, but we were able to even exceed our goal of producing three million liters of drinking water. In the end, we produced 3.65 million liters of clean water.
We gave 15% of this volume away to poor families and sold 85% to the mini traders at a fair price. The annual operating costs are around USD 66,000.

We are proud and grateful for the result and hope that we can continue to make many people happy at this level in the years to come.

Many thanks and great recognition to the team in Nigeria and to all of you as our donors who made this possible.

Some of our staff members in the water factory

Everybody wants our pure water

Two of our three big trucks

Our mini van for low volume water delivery

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