Project enlargement
Lotogou High School

The Lotogou high school with its 2100 students divided into 21 classes is the main school complex in the Savannah region which, with an average annual per capita income of about 350 USD, is the poorest and least developed of all Togo.

Project origins

Complex issues such as climate change, migration flows, poverty or gender equality in recent years have led international cooperation to play an increasingly central role for current and future global economic, social and environmental balances. Thanks to the creation of the 17 objectives of sustainable development (SDG) introduced with the 2030 agenda of the UN, development cooperation has acquired a universal form and dimension, in fact the innovative feature of the program consists in its inclusiveness distinct from the responsibility of the whole of the actors existing at the various levels of the system starting from financiers to reach beneficiaries, from OECD countries to developing countries, from government organizations to NGOs, to the involvement of every single individual present on our planet.
 
Often the attention is focused only on the most immediate and most tangible benefits obtained by the direct beneficiaries of the various interventions, forgetting that as an exchange, which often takes place on different levels, all the actors involved as the same global system obtain benefits, thus determining a "win-win" framework situation.
 
The expansion and optimization of the structure hosting the Lotogou High School, aimed in particular at SDG objectives 4 and 17 and characterized by the involvement of various private lenders and a close collaboration with the local institutional partners and the direct beneficiaries themselves, is an excellent example of a relevant, efficient, effective, sustainable and impactful development cooperation project.

Project Description

The Lotogou high school with its 2100 students divided into 21 classes is the main school complex in the Savannah region which, with an average annual per capita income of about 350 USD, is the poorest and least developed of all Togo.

The structural and didactic conditions of the service are critical, the state finances only 14 professors and the parental committee at its expense has had to activate to hire 10 additional professors, this in a context where the composition of the classes can reach the 130 elements that often they find themselves sharing a school every four students.

Thanks to the involvement and support of different types of lenders, such as institutional partners, sports associations and private organizations, specifically the Gravesano Middle School, FC Lugano players, QRP friends and the generous contribution of some private individuals, is it was possible to build a new school complex consisting of 3 new classes able to accommodate more than 60 students each, using the innovative construction technique that involves the use of compressed and stabilized earth bricks (CEB).

Expected and reached results

The construction of the new structure immediately allowed a significant improvement in the conditions and teaching tools available to the direct beneficiaries, encouraging the governmental commitment to adapt the staff of the teaching staff.

In all the phases of implementation of the project the contribution offered by the partners of the South, in particular the NGO Dassifem together with the entire local community, was decisive and as well as favoring the consolidation of the collaborative and interpersonal dynamics in place of the bases for the acquisition of new strategic and operational planning skills.

The results obtained at the level of the Northern partners, above all in terms of social awareness and human enrichment, have also been significant, in this direction we must highlight the praiseworthy initiatives in the field of teaching and fund raising, aimed at promoting a development not only of training but also human of the single students as well as of their families, proposed by the Gravesano Middle School, as well as the social impact occurred thanks to the sensitivity shown by FC Lugano players, by the QRP friends and by individual private lenders.

The overall budget of the project is undoubtedly positive and opens the door to new possibilities of collaboration aimed at consolidating and expanding the results obtained as well as stimulating the potential development of new projects aimed at fueling a development cooperation process able to recreate a universally more harmonious, balanced and sustainable social, economic and environmental status.