The headteacher has a penchant and talent for teaching deaf children and the hope is, when the project is finished, that not only will she be able to use her methods to teach more disadvantaged youngsters but that those methods can act as a model to be rolled out to more schools.
About 15 of the school’s 100 pupils are deaf. The ambition is to raise the number of deaf to 50.
Rotary Club of Holbeach treasurer and president-elect Colin Scott, who has visited the school with fellow Rotarian David Dye while on a polio immunisation trip to India, says the club is keen to support the headteacher’s desire to “evangelise” her teaching methods.
He added: “She is doing a fantastic job making deaf children a productive part of society rather than a burden.
“We want other schools to be able to do the same thing.”
The project includes refurbishing classrooms, building new sanitation facilities, renewing the water supply, and rebuilding and expanding the admininstration block to include dormitories, kitchen and dining areas to properly accommodate an expanding intake of deaf pupils.
It was former member Andrew Bines, who was president at the time, who first became aware of the school via Facebook about five years ago.
The cause was adopted as the club’s international project and Colin managed to encourage a number of other Rotary clubs in the East Midlands to support it too, gaining about £10,000 in pledges.
Just as it was getting some really good traction and The Nepal Trust, a registered Scottish charity and non governmental organisation in Nepal, had come on board, the project took on a new and enforced importance. The school’s area was affected by the huge earthquake of 2015.
Colin said: “At that point, we heard that the main building had been badly damaged. We knew that a lot of rebuilding was going to be needed.”
The total cost was then put at £104,000. The Nepal Trust, which had already raised £30,000, said it hoped to get sponsors to chip in more to get to over £60,000.
Colin said: “I went round more Rotary clubs to get them interested in the project with donations of between £250 and £1,000. I got together pledges for just over £20,000, which I thought was pretty amazing.”
The final total from Rotary clubs is hoped to be about £30,000.
Colin added: “We’ve managed this project simply by working hard and we’re very proud of that. We think we’ve done a pretty good job.
“There are something like 500,000 profoundly deaf children in Nepal. If we can get to ten per cent of those through this project then it will have been a massive success.”
The project is expected to finish late this year and Colin hopes to visit it again.
Rotary Club of Holbeach said: “We will continue to support the school until completion and look forward to seeing the first intake of students soon.”
