Angola

The (Little) School of Peace

Helena Ribeiro de Castro

Angola was formerly a Portuguese colony and gained its independence in 1975, following thirteen years of war. Unfortunately, independence did not guarantee the end of war and fighting, as the new state immediately entered a period of civil war, lasting twenty-seven years, as different political parties attempted to gain control in government. Consequently, over a million Angolans were forced to move from their homelands, with approximately 500,000 killed and an unknown number injured or mutilated. Eventually, when a peace treaty was signed in 2002, the infrastructures and the public services of Angola were devastated and ruined; there was no drinking water for most citizens; cultivable fields were destroyed and there were millions of children and young adults who had never had access to an education meaning they could not read or write.

During the later years of the civil war, a young Angolan Dominican Sister, Domingas Loureiro, who lived in Viana, close to the country’s capital of Luanda, started to gather a group of children who wished to learn and be taught. In the year of 1994, more than two thousand children were identified to be illiterate, in the neighbourhood. This initial teaching group consisted of approximately 30 children. Through word of mouth, children began to bring one or two neighbours each and soon the class sizes were closer to 250 children. Each child took one or two neighbours and within a few months they were 250, with classes taking place in churches and predominantly outside in open spaces. Soon enough, with the exponential increase of students, resources and locations could not be found to accommodate such an influx; additionally, makeshift chalkboards and other inadequate funds were no longer satisfactory for such large numbers of children. Sister Domingas decided she would have to close the school and notified the parents that she would no longer be able to teach their children. However, the parents viewed that her teachings for their children were invaluable and instead presented a compromise: the parents would secure land to legalise the school and give it a permanent residence and the Dominican Sisters should look for the building materials.

Sister Domingas began her search for building assets by knocking on doors of the townspeople in desperation, looking for people who would be willing to aid her cause. She stated that her “concern was also to influence those who have money, to be able to help those who did not” (Loureiro, 2000). Whilst Sister Domingas considered the shame of begging for money, the reasoning for it outweighed her own personal reservations with the claims for the poor children giving her extra courage. The generosity of the town raged from donations of 100 dollars a month to 1500 dollars a month, which allowed for extra luxuries of providing milk for the children, and in the meantime student numbers continued to increase to over 350 pupils. Such numbers and positive reactions from both students and the community attracted interest from the district authorities who then insisted children should partake in official exams.

Due to the poor economic state of Angola, many parents had poorly paid jobs such as sellers in the square, meaning they did not have time to look after or pursue an education for their children. Many children, especially girls, were expected to stay at home with responsibilities such as housework and the taking care of younger siblings; but these children, too, were desperate to go to Sister Domingas’ school with them approaching her in the street, begging her to take them to school. When the student numbers approached 600, it became an urgent issue to enlarge the space for learning which had initially comprised of four tents made of straw, grass and wood which were built by the schoolchildren and their parents. Resources and building materials were still scarce as children had milk cans as chairs.

However, In the meantime, Sister Domingas received 350,000 dollars from an oil company to build her dream school: the surprising offer included land and money to start building immediately. Furthermore, the land was big enough to house buildings for pre-school and primary school teaching. Following widely publicised reports, other oil companies contributed money to expand the initial dream with the planning of a large whole school campus with additional buildings which would allow the children to continue their education process in the so called “Little School of Peace”. The first building included six classrooms with other administrative rooms such as a Director’s office, staff room, reception and a beautiful garden. A canteen was also built, which was then able to provide one cooked meal for each child, and for many this would be the only full hot meal they would eat a day, so the school became of the utmost importance to the children in another aspect. On inauguration day, children were presented with new uniforms which included shoes, all of which were provided by the sponsored oil companies. When the day came for the school to receive brand new wooden desks, children danced and celebrated by offering their old seats as recycled flower pots with plants inside to representatives of the oil companies – a symbol of a new beginning.

However, in the community, schooling was not the only pressing issue to be solved: children’s health and citizen registry were problems which also needed solving. In 1998, five students passed away due to of the lack of sanitary living conditions and minimal medical aid; consequently, when children became ill at school, it became responsibility of the teaching staff to take children to get medical attention. It was decided, that it would be beneficial to both teachers and students, to build a hospital within the school grounds and a medical post was also established, which allowed they decided to set up a hospital in the school and a medical post was built to follow up on the children’s health post-treatment. To solve the registration problem, Sister Domingas had to write to the Minister of Justice and for many children, she had to sign the papers herself on behalf of their parents who could not as they also had no registration certificates. It was also deemed necessary for teaching staff regularly to visit students’ homes to develop a sense of each individual family’s situation, especially when children were attending school unaccompanied, poorly washed or not completing homework. By considering this, the school was able to tailor their communication to each family’s specific individual needs.

In 2018, 1557 students study at the school which, despite its enlargement of the school campus from a small pre-school and adjoining primary school to including a secondary school too, has never lost its original ethos and name: The Little School of Peace.

Number: 1557.

Word: Peace.