A crisis is unfolding in the deep rural area of Livayi village in Kavango East, where young children are forced to live in unsafe conditions just to access basic education. 

Kavango East Education Director Christine Shilima reveals that the Livayi Primary School hostel project remains stalled due to lack of funding and severe road accessibility.

Incomplete infrastructure and raw, inaccessible roads have stalled a vital school hostel project. Consequently, desperate parents are making a painful choice, sending children as young as Grade 2 to fend for themselves in a community makeshift hostel just to secure an education.

No proper meals, just Mahangu flour, which the children pound themselves to cook porridge, which they eat with traditional relish known as Ntjivi, derived from rosewood trees, and sometimes Mutete.

Joseph Kamenye, a concerned parent, stressed, "The children's accommodation is a crisis. Although the girls are in the completed girls' hostel, they struggle with water, no electricity, no beds, sleeping on mattresses, and no adult supervision. The boys' hostel was abandoned at the foundation level. The government has forgotten this project. Our children are struggling with getting food, as the ministry of education can't provide for them, as there is no completed hostel."

The affected learners are from villages surrounding Livayi village.

"This is a school in the deep, deep rural area in the inland. The road to access the school is again not that accessible. It's difficult to access this school. There's no even gravel road," explained Shilima. 

The director said standard project budgets from the Department of Works ignore harsh rural terrain. A contractor building in an urban area receives the same funding as one struggling to haul heavy materials through the deep sand of rural Kavango East.

Consequently, projects stall, leaving infrastructure incomplete.

"Two bidders were awarded. One for the boy's hostel, another one for the girl's hostel. For the girl's hostel, the contractor completed it. But for the boy's hostel, the contractor did not complete. The reason being, they did not have sufficient funds to embark on a project of that kind that was awarded to the contractor in comparison with the other contractor, who perhaps was well established financially. So, I did have some visits to the school. I understand the environment and the type of the road. I appreciate the contractor for the girl's hostel and that he survived that type of road."

Due to a lack of budget, the government cannot finish a school hostel or feed learners. Because girls face severe safety risks squatting nearby, desperate parents struck a deal to move them into an incomplete, unequipped girls' hostel, while boys remain in makeshift structures.