16 Dec 2010

BENIN / FLOODS

In the past two months, Benin has experienced one of the worst floods since the 1960s. In the villages that were hardest hit schools were destroyed along with teaching materials. UNICEF

Posted at: December 16, 2010 6:26 pm

Duration: 03:12

Available in: SD

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Full script

STORY: BENIN / FLOODS
TRT: 3:12 
SOURCE: UNICEF
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: FRENCH / NATS

DATELINE: 9 DECEMBER 2010, BENIN
 
SHOTLIST:
 
1.Med shot, boy roaming on a makeshift raft
2.Wide shot, destroyed houses from boat
3.Wide shot, children walking in the water through the school courtyard
4.Med shot, women carrying dirt on their heads approaching construction site
5.Med shot, man moving sand with shovel
6.Med shot, Pan left, courtyard with construction going on to interior of destroyed classroom with damaged benches
7.Med shot, boy running through the school's courtyard, passing by men at work
8.Wide shot, children carrying bowls of dirt, to build a road to reach their isolated school
9.Med shot, children carrying bowls of dirt, isolated classrooms at the background
10. Close up, Pan right, children throwing dirt on the flooded path leading to their classroom
11.Wide shot, school of ganvie
12.Wide shot, Pan left, school courtyard under water
13.Med shot, collapsed building
14.Wide shot, Pan right, crowded classroom, children chanting and clapping
15.Med shot, David Houngbadji, director of Ganvie School group 1C, placing children on the crowded bench.
16.SOUNDBITE (French) David Houngbadji, director of Ganvie School group 1C:
"Here in this classroom, we have in fact the children of two classrooms, each of them had around 90 children before the floods. Now in this very room, we teach a class of 185 children, we don't even have the bench to sit them all, it's seriously difficult."
17.Wide shot, school courtyard
18. Med shot, Pan left, children in classroom to damaged school books
19.SOUNDBITE (French) Ambroise Vignon Botondji, Director of the school :
"Every single school books we had to start the school year has been completely ruined by the floods, it all drowned. We only just received some material from the government to start the classes."
20.Med shot, man carrying a Unicef package with school supplies to a barge
21.Close up, Unicef's cartons of school supply in a barge going to a damaged school
22.Medium shot, motor boat on route to damaged school on the Oueme river
23.Wide shot, children lining in front of school for the distribution of school kits
24.Close up, school kits
25.SOUNDBITE (French) Sulpice Dossou, UNICEF's education specialist:
"Parents have lost vast pieces of cultivable land, and some recoltes (crops)have been lost, so entire families are left without resources. In those conditions, when the school year finally started, they had no means to buy their children the necessary material."
26.Close up, Tilt up, children carrying school kits
27.Close up, boys studying
28.Med shot, children carrying cartons of school kits
29.Med shot, boy walking through the water towards home, carring a Unicef's school bag on his shoulders.
30. Wide shot, children waving goodbye on the banks of the river Oueme.

STORYLINE:

In the past two months, Benin has experienced one of the worst floods since the 1960's.
Today, most of the water has receded and the United Nations, along with the government of Benin, are putting in place a longer-term response to the crisis.

In Benin, around eight percent of the schools have been partially of totally destructed. Around 105 000 school children cannot benefit from a regular school year. Many schools are still inaccessible. In some places children sometimes started school in very harsh conditions.
In Ganvie for instance, a lake district of South Benin, the fast flowing water has caused the collapse of three classrooms.

The director had to relocate the children in those left still standing.

SOUNDBITE (French) David Houngbadji, director of Ganvie School group 1C:
"In this classroom, we have in fact the children of two classrooms, each of them had around 90 children before the floods. Now in this very room, we teach a class of 185 children, we don't even have the bench to sit them all, it's seriously difficult."

In other places, where the buildings have held firm, the classrooms themselves have been damaged by the water.In Gogbo, a village near the river Oueme, Ambroise Vignon Botondji, the director,still moans at the sight of the spoiled material in his classroom.

SOUNDBITE (French) Ambroise Vignon Botondji, Director, Ganvie School:
"Every single school books we had to start the school year has been completely ruined by the floods, it all drowned. We only just received some material from the government to start the classes."

To help children get back to school as soon as possible, UNICEF has started distributing school kits to the ones who lost everything in the floods.The distribution has just started in schools in the hardest hit villages, located next to the Oueme river. In Hetin Sotta for instance, some 450 children received books, pens and a school bag.

SOUNDBITE (French) Sulpice Dossou, Education Specialist, UNICEF:
"Parents have lost vast pieces of cultivable land, and some recoltes have been lost, so entire families are left without resources. In those conditions, when the school year finally started, they had no means to buy their children the necessary material."

An additional 100, 000 school kits are to be distributed, and schools are slowly being rehabilitated.

For those lucky enough to go to school, the flooding has made the path even more difficult. But improvements underway could lead to more children attending class rooms.