In 2021, we accepted the local authorities’ request to build a school in a very poor rural area in Soddo Province. The building can accommodate up to a thousand students in three shifts and consists of eight large classrooms, offices, a library, a teachers’ room, and a large tukul for outdoor activities. The furniture, built in our workshops, was also donated: desks, blackboards, tables, bookcases, chairs, and cupboards. The school opened in September 2021 and the official inauguration took place in November.

From 2009 to 2012, Busajo Onlus took care of fundraising, financing, and management of the Smiling Children Town center, built by the local Catholic Mission to provide shelter for over 100 street children in Soddo. Our organization completed the construction of the center and launched an educational rehabilitation and reintegration project for street children. During that time, approximately 500 children were involved in the program and most of them were reintegrated into their families. Since January 2013, the center has returned to the direct management of the Catholic Vicariate of Soddo.

In 2011, we began a partnership with the Abba Pascal Girls’ School, a wonderful all-female institution that serves over 900 girls from very poor families, from kindergarten to high schooldiploma. The school was built thanks to the passion and expertise of Antonio Striuli, a retired teacher who moved to Soddo with his wife to lead extraordinary social projects.

Our association contributed by covering the costs of the school staff and teachers and by participating in the completion of the sports facilities. We also printed and shipped to Kontohundreds of books.

3 km from the center of Shanto (30 km from Soddo) lies the village of Zaimene, densely populated by extremely poor families belonging to the Fuga clan, a marginalized tribe performing jobs considered of low-value and live in miserable huts. In reality, they are a community of artisans, working with iron and clay and tanning hides.

Due to social and ethnic discrimination, the children of the village become herders for cows and sheep belonging to the richer ones and do not attend school; in general, in a family with six children, two of them die before reaching the age of five. Parental illiteracy is the main cause of their extreme poverty, disease, and social exclusion.

To promote their social integration, we built a nursery and primary school officially opened in February 2013.