NORKAMA PRIMARY SCHOOL
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Norkama Primary School
Community Project
Paving the Way to a Better Future – Norkama Primary School
As of 2021, Sarama hit a significant 10-year partnership milestone with Ecole Primaire de Norkama (Norkama Primary School) in Norkama, a village situated on Sarama’s Tankoro permit in Burkina Faso.
Over the past decade, Sarama has introduced and upheld numerous social initiatives to benefit the Norkama school – including the construction of three new classrooms in 2013. Sarama financed the CFA 16.2m investment, employing local labour to build a facility that would come to house approximately 240 local students. Since the new classrooms have been operational, Norkama Primary school has seen a three-fold increase in student numbers and a notable +60% increase in females enrolled.
Additionally, Sarama has supported the Norkama Primary school in becoming an official Government exam centre, enabling children to sit exams locally rather than having to travel vast distances.
The benefit of accessibility to a better learning environment and local exam centre has been reflected in consistently enhanced learner performance. In the Norkama Primary School’s last set of school exams (conducted as part of the transition requirement from primary to secondary school), students achieved a success – or pass – rate of 99%.
Since 2012, Sarama Resources has contributed to the Norkama school canteen, funding a school lunch program that ensures all school children get lunch. Given current enrolment figures, this represents about 240 meals per day (estimated at a cost between 1.5 and 2 million FCFA/year).
Sarama is responsible for supplying the food and local mothers manage the cooking and distribution to ensure the poorer children receive more. Sarama has continued this relationship, even through challenging periods that the company has experienced over the years.
Over 2021, Sarama Resources has funded repairs on the roofs of two of the Norkama Schools and is in the process of connecting electricity to these facilities. Sarama has no plans of stopping here – and looks forward to another decade of contributing to a brighter future for Norkama’s youth.
