A typical hut in the Kindiri village

In 2013, GLOCAP constructed a small thatch-hut and timber schoolhouse in Kindiri, a small rural community in southern Chad. Two years later, GLOCAP constructed Kindiri’s first brick schoolhouse. The school currently has 300 students grades 1-6 with five teachers. The school aspires to add a sixth teacher in January 2024 to infuse the arts into all classes. GLOCAP constructed a second brick schoolhouse in neighboring Maitama, which opened January, 2018, with 80 children in grades 1 and 2. Each school shares a commitment to environmental stewardship and the arts.

In August 2023, Clamra Celestin, GLOCAP’s VP, in collaboration with local artists, facilitated a pit-fired ceramic workshop at the school with 150 students. This included the local tradition of decorating calabashes, thus reviving dying artistic tradition. Clamra recalls, “the whole community, men and women, old and young, took part in the project, teaching children to forge pots and jars by hollowing out and building walls from lumps of clay, to create animals and birds, to decorate calabashes…”

As of today, seven of the school’s alumni have graduated from a master’s program in various African universities and ten more are currently enrolled in programs. Additionally, more than 1000 trees have been planted as part of the school’s stewardship curriculum.

Clamra’s memoir “Fils du Ciel” (Son of the Sky), published in Paris in 2011, recounts his journey from Kindiri to Paris and later Manhattan. Born and raised in Kindiri, at the age of 8 he was taken by the Jesuits to be educated at a school a hundred miles from his village. The trauma of separation from family and community prompted him to open the two schools, and to dig a well to provide students with fresh water.

GLOCAP’s programs have raised the quality of life for both villages and are raising expectations. This would not have been possible without generous support from the Charles E Scheidt Family Foundation, The Collomb Family, Ms. Donna Sylvester, The Dr. Werner Muensterberger Trust, and, of course, many small donors.