Our project number: 12681-development through school desks - a successor of http://www.betterplace.org/de/projects/10880-fur-regenwald-und-mensch-afrika-weltweit: if local communities in Congolese rainforest of Tshuapa want their children to learn, they need to generally take it into their own hands. They build schools, are looking for teachers and contribute to their subsistence. If the buildings are destroyed in stormy tropical rain, it is again the communities who care - the state is far away. Since the forest farmers are always very poor in the isolated region by lack of access to markets, their means are insufficient to properly equip schools: the kids learn on the dusty ground. The partnership committee Bokungu has launched a program "elephant foot desks" to change that: local communities can apply for and close a contract. Parent committees undertake the rehabilitation of schools and in return receive robust school desks for the classrooms. Manufactured are these benches ("elephant foot") by local craftsmen, what gives these and their families work and bread. The combination of initiative, attention and support radiates to the neighbors and a cycle of development beginns. A first project with the primary school EP Bolondo in Bokungu is successful and may soon be completed. For the girls primary school Lifala EP and EP Yaloya in Chefferie Nkole it is ready to go soon - the TV readers have ensured the financing. There are other communities who contest for the programm - that's why we ask for further support, as well as in the rain forest so people can have better life, which will hopefully also help the preservation of the green lung, so important for the world's climate.