School construction "Treehouse Academy"

Founded in 2014 by German teacher Micha Kühne, who had emigrated to Namibia, the Treehouse Academy is a private institution and therefore not funded by the government. The school's concept is based on the idea that children from financially disadvantaged families can attend a privat school for free, alongside children whose parents pay school fees, ensuring equal education for all. The aim is to enable learning and playing together regardless of socioeconomic backgrounds. The school strives to offer a sustainable, future-oriented, and high-quality education based on the Namibian curriculum. The Treehouse Academy includes a kindergarten and educates students from Grade 1 to Grade 7. In addition to their education, all children receive a warm meal and have the opportunity to participate in a wide range of school extracurricular activities.

Originally, the Treehouse Academy was housed in a former residential building and another rented structure. This arrangement led to spatial separation between classes, and the residential building was not equipped for educational purposes. For instance, there was only one toilet for the children, and the classrooms could only be partially separated by curtains.

High rental expenses, coupled with the practice of using all school fees to enroll more underprivileged children, made it challenging for school principal Michael Kühne to save enough money to build a school. In 2019, he personally purchased land for the construction of his own school building and had been trying to obtain a loan for the planned school construction since then. Due to bank refusals and the challenging financial situation caused by the COVID-19 crisis, the dream of having his own school seemed out of reach.

The close collaboration between Conambiki and the Treehouse Academy emerged from some of our founding members volunteering at the school. Since the association's founding in 2020, the Treehouse Academy has been the partner school of our school sponsorship project. Thus, we experienced firsthand the issues arising from unsuitable premises for educational purposes. Consequently, we decided to take charge of financing the school construction on Micha's property itself.

Thanks to the financial support from many private donors and the organization BILD hilft e. V. "Ein Herz für Kinder" we were able to commence the school construction in October 2021.

The construction of the new school lasted from October to December 2021. In total, seven classrooms, a library, a school kitchen, girls', boys', and teachers' toilets, a teachers' room, a secretariat, an office, and a playground were built. Since January 2022, more than 100 children at the new Treehouse Academy have received special pedagogical care, a daily warm meal, afternoon leisure activities, as well as free school materials and, as needed, school and leisure clothing.

Due to the new construction, expenses for the old school buildings were saved, allowing the percentage of students not paying school fees to increase from 15% to 30%.

Additionally, two water tanks with a total capacity of 20,000 liters were purchased for the new school building. These are required in Rundu due to recurring water supply failures and interruptions. In the old school building of the Treehouse Academy, classes often had to be canceled because meals couldn’t be cooked, and toilets couldn’t be used. The two water tanks can now bridge the interruptions for approximately two weeks and are available for emergencies. Through a separate donation campaign, we received donations totaling €925. The remaining amount to cover the total cost of €1800 was paid from Conambiki's reserves.