RainShine Foundation Australia

Building opportunities for self-sufficiency in remote DRCongo (ACN 633 337 283)

Our Work

Epi Primary School – Rooms for Learning

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With the successful conclusion of our 20,000 brick project we are now in the planning phase to build 6 classrooms, a headmaster’s office, and 2 latrines. Depending on funding for this project, it will be implemented in two stages, the first stage will include the building of 3 classrooms and two latrines, and then the second stage will include the construction of the remaining 3 classrooms and the headmaster office with an extra classroom. RainShine Australia is currently seeking funding for this project.

And Epi Primary School classroom in 2019

The current classrooms are small and over crowded and are in a dilapidated condition. Each year thatched roofs need to be replaced. White ants eat the softwood structures used in the classrooms. And because it rains for 10 months out of a year the mud walls of the classrooms are eroded away.

This project will rebuild the 6 classrooms and other supporting buildings in brick, hard wood, and tin to provide a more secure, comfortable, and a more spacious environment for learning.

Our estimate to build 2 blocks containing 3 classrooms in each block, which will provide a total of 6 classrooms, 2 latrines, and 1 headmaster’s office with an overflow classroom is $70,000 AUD.

If you would like to contribute to the Rooms for Learning project, then please donate below.

Architectural plan for new classrooms at Epi DRCongo

Help our children achieve a comfortable learning environment for improved educational outcomes. All donation amounts are in AUD.

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20 Thousand Bricks

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When we started working with the Epi primary school in 2012 one our first long-term goals we wanted to achieve was to replace the current school classroom huts with school buildings made from brick, hardwood timber, and tin. At the time this goal was way beyond our resource capability, so we decided to work towards the goal by starting the 10,000 Brick project.

Brick making Epi village 2018

We fell short of our goal of 10,000 bricks by 4,000 due to funding difficulties at the time. However in 2018 we re-invigorated the project by forming a local Brick Committee in the village to manage the work and we also provided new funding. During 2018 over 10,000 were made. This project has been completed.

Brick firing in Epi DRCongo in late 2018

We now have 20,000 bricks for our future construction work. A small number of those will be used to build a room to store our equipment for the High Frequency radio, and the remainder will be used in the future construction of the new classrooms.

Talk with Us

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At a meeting with RainShine in 2017 in the Epi village, the local people expressed the need for communication. The Epi village is located at Latitude 4.0137400 and Longitude 26.6762300. This location is a very remote part of DRCongo and it has no access to telecommunications. The absence of communication presents a number of problems, not only for RainShine to contact the village, but also in the case where there is an emergency such as an attack by a rebel group.

Rebel groups travel through this area, and when a village does not have any form of communication this can increase the risk of an attack. History shows that when remote communities have radio communication, this can limit the scale of an attack and also act as a deterrent to rebels because they know an attack can be reported quickly to authorities. A village that has sustained an attack can fore warn other villages that rebels are in the local area, which will save lives in many cases.

High Frequency radio equipment in DRCongo
High Frequency radio equipment being uppacked in DRCongo

In 2017 we started engaging with the Invisible Children (IC) organisation to look at installing a High Frequency radio in the Epi Village. IC project staff from Dungu DRCongo conducted a field visit to the Epi Village in 2018 where an agreement was formed with the people to install a system.

Members of the Epi Community who attended the meeting with Invisible Children

In December 2019 the RainShine Foundation and Invisible Children successfully completed the installation of a High Frequency radio in the Epi village. The High Frequency radio will provide much needed communication, but it will also be included in the Early Warning Communication Network in Democratic Republic of Congo called LRA Crisis Tracker. The Epi High Frequency radio will be the first in this region of DRCongo and will be a strategic site in the network.

The Epi village can now share life-saving information with other villages, with the LRA Crisis Tracker team, and also with RainShine.

The LRA tracker system not only provides information to the world on all rebel acts in DRCongo, it also provides analysis to humanitarians, protection actors, and policymakers to ensure that they are able to more effectively protect communities like the Epi Village. Click here for LRA Tracker

Turn on the Lights

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The Australian team installing solar panels at Epi Village 2018

Did your parents every say to you dont read in the dark as it will hurt your eyes? One of things that surprised us the most at the Epi Primary school in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRCongo) is that the classrooms during the day are so dim. In 2017 the RainShine Foundation USA and Australia commenced the Turn on the Lights Project to raise funds for the provision of a solar system for this primary school in DRCongo. Then in 2018 the Australian RainShine team traveled to Uganda and DRCongo to implemented a 500 watt solar system at the Epi primary school. This solar installation provided light and power in the 6 classrooms and the church. This project was successfully completed and is now in a maintenance phase.

In the history of this village the people had some hand-cranked lanterns, but they never had electric light and power. The teachers of the school wanted better lighting so they could do tutoring at night. We also noticed that during mass the priest would used a torch to read the bible and hymn books. We could see a number of benefits for this village to have access to electric light and power, and specifically to improve lighting in the classrooms for reading.

One of the Epi Primary school classrooms before light

It was clear to us that after installing the solar system all the teachers agreed that providing lighting in the classrooms made a significant improvement to both teacher and student participation.

Classroom with electric light installed
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