Building a school is the easy part. Sustaining a quality learning environment that addresses the needs of girls and boys requires vision, commitment and partnership.

A SPECIAL DAY AT SCHOOL

The walls and roof are firmly in place, impermeable to the sun, wind and animals that used to bother you when you were looking over your classmate's head to see the blackboard. The desks are a dream to sit at compared to those rickety rough stones. The teachers look much taller standing up straight to teach, and happier sitting down comfortably in their own desks to make meaningful lesson plans and to mark your assignments. You love coming here every day, and your grades continue to climb because someone far away believed in your right to education. At recess, the clean latrines are the place to be, just before you hit the sports field. You're happy to trade in that dirty old rag ball covered in cactus quills for a real soccer ball. Like other students around the world, break time is play time.

And today, those people from that little organization with the funny name that built your school are back and asking, "Who wants to be a School Club Leader?"

"What on earth is a School Club?" you wonder. Despite a nervous little feeling in your tummy, uncontrollably, your hand shoots way way up...

With the education building blocks firmly in place, imagine1day is now focusing on enriching school days at Harnet with five extracurricular school clubs, including: Environmental Protection & Sanitation, Language & Literature, Sport & Art, HIV & Gender, and Civics & Ethical Education clubs. Just one year ago, the Harnet students had never heard of a school club, much less been given the opportunity to lead one. But that didn't stop five grade four students who accepted their elected post as the club leaders.

imagine1day's Community Development Officer and aspiring motivational speaker, Lulseged Beyene, eased these five curious students into their roles with a leadership orientation. He was impressed to see that the students quickly knew which club would be the most rewarding choice for them. We asked these go-getters what makes them a good leader and what they will do to be the best leader possible for their club and for their school. Here are their answers to those two questions:

harnet gets creative

We're trying something new at imagine1day schools, something almost unheard of in rural Ethiopian villages... we're making art. Harnet students were among the first to pick up coloured pens and put their imaginations down on paper in a formal art lesson.

Art teacher Desta Tadesse brought along with him a bundle of colourful drawings, collages and sculptures to spark the students' creativity and to show them that the world we see is made up intersecting lines and textures. His name means "happiness" in the Tigrigna language and his warm, gentle demeanour instantly gained him the trust of Harnet's shy grade one class.

"My name is Desta, and I like to make pictures. I know you like pictures too, so I will trade you one of mine for one of yours, if you wouldn't mind drawing something for me."

At these words, big smiles stretched across little faces while eager little hands began to draw and colour: a magic show of pure expression.

In early 2010, Desta will visit Harnet again to train the teachers in incorporating creative components into their daily lessons, setting up creative activities and identifying and encouraging artistically talented students.

Creativity is ever vital in the current rural Ethiopian context, where, exacerbated with climate change, drought is becoming the norm rather than the exception. Harnet has been hit particularly hard this year, resulting in significant absences as children are kept at home to work while parents struggle to find outside work to make ends meet. Seeing the world in new ways means seeing new ways of solving the world's problems and becoming self-sufficient. Talking to students about possibilities is important, but equipping them with the tools to create their own possibilities is the key to their prosperity in an uncertain future. According to scholar Sir Ken Robinson, internationally recognized leader in the development of creativity, innovation and human resources, our task is to "educate our children's whole being, so that they can face this uncertain future. We may not see this future, but they will, and our job is to help them make something of it."

meet harnet's new school director

Last year, Girmay Gebremichael was a teacher at "Melbe," a school imagine1day has supported with many quality components. This year he was promoted to principal of Harnet. imagine1day sat down with Principal Girmay to see how he was handling his important new role.

i1d: How does working in the Harnet community compare with working in Melbe?

Principal Girmay: The drought situation here presents some challenges I didn't have before. Melbe is more fertile and there is no issue of absenteeism. In a sense, Melbe has the luxury to follow through on education awareness; whereas Harnet is struggling to prioritize education over survival.

i1d: What barriers are Harnet students currently facing?

Principal Girmay: It is harvest season. Although the harvest is small this year (really not enough for sustenance) parents still keep their children from school to help out in the field or to keep animals while they bring goods to sell at the market on market days. They see it is a temporary measure. In a couple of weeks the harvest will be over and they'll let their kids come back to learning. They straddle the line of two worlds. They love their children, they want to educate their children, but need their labour as well. It is a lot of pressure on a seven year old.

i1d: Are you taking any steps to mitigate this situation?

Principal Girmay: In the three months I have been here, I have built a good relationship with the local government and the PTA. We are working together to strengthen awareness in the community at weekly church services, holidays, other social gatherings, and door-to-door.

i1d: How do you ease the pressure on these young students who must juggle school and farm work?

Principal Girmay: Normally I would create an after-hours tutorial for struggling students. But since they have to rush home after school to help their parents, our teachers are very sensitive to their situation and catch absent students up in class the next day. I'm proud to have such a dedicated team of educators.

i1d: What is your vision for Harnet?

Principal Girmay: I wish for the school to be developed up to grade eight, and to see the whole community achieve at least a grade eight education. I also wish for the society to be able to read and write, for the people to express themselves in writing and to be creative in solving their problems. I'm up for the challenge of making these dreams a reality through my growing relationship with them and by educating their children.

behind every great principal

Local government (kushet) leader Gebresellassie Hailu and PTA member Weizero Tebebu are two keystones that support Principal Girmay in raising education awareness at Harnet. Together with the PTA, Ato Hailu works to mobilize the community to see "increased commitment to let our children focus on learning rather than on labour, and to contribute their own labour to support the school."

Ato Hailu and the PTA's efforts to enrol the community's labour are already paying off. As per the action plan they developed following the PTA training you supported, following are items they have proudly checked off their to-do list:

PTA member Weizero Tebebu's hope for Harnet's young generation is to "see them better off than their parents, it is up to us to make that happen." For her, ensuring this vision for her daughter in grade four and her grandson in grade two is more than just words. "After imagine1day built the latrine at the school, I decided to be the first to dig a latrine in my home," she explains, "today 85% of the 105 households in the village have a latrine, and counting. One year ago, there were none."

Weizero Tebebu and school staff have been encouraging other parents to dig latrines: "Since the road was built for school construction, government Health Extension Workers have been visiting us and urging this practice in all households," she reports. "We are facing challenges with the drought, but there has been a real change in attitude towards education and sanitation; awareness has increased and commitment is still high despite the hardships."

The next step in Weizero Tebebu's development mission is to oversee the new drip-irrigation project at the school. The PTA and community members tilled 500m² of school land after recent experience-sharing events held by imagine1day at Abada and Girabered, two schools which enjoyed great success growing onions using this lucrative income generation activity. Crop assessment committees have so far overlooked remote Harnet, but Weizero Tebebu will not wait for them to solve their drought issue.

While students focus on learning, Tebebu and the PTA, along with school staff will set yet another example for the community by filling the micro irrigation tanks from a water source downhill from the school. She expects the same kind of success as at Abada and Girabered and looks forward to the practice catching on amongst Harnet's farmers. With such a powerhouse PTA member as Tebebu, dedicated school staff and an active kushet leader at the helm, imagine1day is confident that Harnet can weather any storm, and flourish.

(As a side note, our regional government partners were so impressed with the results of imagine1day's micro-irrigation projects that they are mobilizing all 70 schools in the woreda to generate income this way, and are moving towards having 7,000m² of the region's farmland be irrigation-fed.)

Like many villages in rural Tigray, the prevailing drought has been tough on food security in Harnet. The difference at Harnet is that the community is taking steps to decrease its dependency on the unreliable rains. These steps began in the school you invested in. Thank you for inspiring the possibility of lasting change for the children of Harnet and their families.