In August 2021, Tracka organized a town hall meeting at Sabon Tasha, Chikun LGA in Kaduna to sensitize them on the 2021 FG budget provisions and how to hold their elected leaders accountable.
During this event, the residents lamented that their major need was the renovation of the dilapidated Government Secondary School Sabon Tasha.
The school, which started deteriorating in 2016, has a population of over 3,000 students, but attendance dropped to less than a thousand due to the situation. The windows, doors, ceiling, and floors had gone bad, and there wasn’t furniture, so students sat on the bare floor to learn. These harsh learning conditions compelled parents to withdraw their wards from school.
The principal said the community had made various efforts to contact the government regarding the school’s condition, but action was not taken. Additionally, the principal highlighted that the road to the school was in poor condition, making it difficult for students to attend classes during the rainy seasons.
We sensitized them on advocacy strategies, assisted them in writing letters to their elected representatives, and raised awareness about the school on our social media handles.
We kept following up on the requests, and in August 2023, the principal informed the Tracka team that the renovation of the school had commenced. In October 2023, the Tracka team visited the school and confirmed that three dilapidated blocks of classrooms, including junior and secondary sections, had been renovated, furnished, and in use.
The principal and community members thanked Tracka for the support and assistance to see this project come alive. The principal stated there had been a surge in attendance since the renovation and furnishing. They recorded an average of 2,500 students weekly, a sharp contrast to the less than a thousand attendance in previous years.
Story by Ayomide Ladipo and Bright Osula
