For more than 20 years now the IDEA supported Deaf students in Sagbayan, Bohol, have been attending school in classrooms that were built in the 1950s. Besides just being old, these wooden classrooms are badly termite eaten. For many years 40 to 50 deaf children have been squeezed into three small classrooms, combining two grade levels per rooms. It has not been a good situation and the teachers have been pleading for help for quite some time.
IDEA has responded to their cries by beginning the construction of a four-classroom building on the Sagbayan Central Elementary School Campus. The government has donated the site and IDEA will donate the building to the Department of Education on the condition that the it will be used solely for educating the hearing impaired and that they will shoulder utility costs. IDEA has entered successfully into other similar arrangements with the government in other towns in Bohol and Leyte.
Our all Deaf construction crew is building this new structure from the ground up. The construction team consists of masons, carpenters, welders, plumbers, and general labor. They are all truly professionals in this trade and all trained by IDEA. The estimated time of completion is around March of 2013 as additional funds become available.
This endeavor is made possible with funding from the Consuelo Foundation located in Honolulu, Hawaii.
