I- Telling our story
In 2016, John and Delphine Hicks, from Los Angeles, California,have put together their own resources and decided to build a high school for underprivileged students in a rural area of the Ivory Coast in West Africa. The school was built between the town of Lakota and the village of Dahiri, in a remote area where there were no light, electricity or internet systems.
In 2017: John and Delphine travelled to Cote D’Ivoire (The Ivory Coast) to finalize the construction of the school and all necessary authorizations and paperwork.
In 2018, the High school was ready to open its doors to the first students from the village of Dahiri. John and Delphine, all excited, started getting ready their airline tickets in June to be with their students and staff workers at the grand opening of the school, scheduled to open in early September. Unfortunately, in August, just one month before the grand opening, John Hicks was given a life-threatening diagnosis giving him only 30 months to live. “This is a distraction from the enemy, we are going to open the school, we cannot let these underprivilege children down, God will provide.” John and delphine Hicks got on their knees to put John’s health and the school under the protection of the Word of God. Miracles happened; John’s health is now much better. He is healthy way beyond the 30 months he was given to live in August of 2018 and the school has remained open till now from the class of 6eme (7th Grade) up to the class of 1ere (12th Grade).
| Collège (First Cycle) | Level | Age | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|
| 6eme | 12 | 7th | |
| 5eme | 13 | 8th | |
| 4eme | 14 | 9th | |
| 3eme | 15 | 10th |
After these 4 years, examinations are held for the certificate of the lower cycle of secondary study, BEPC (Brevet d’Etudes du Premier Cycle), With this in hand, students could go out to work, enter a teacher-training institution, or move on to a lycée.
| Lycée (Second cycle) | level | Age | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2nd | 16 | 11th | |
| 1ere | 17 | 12th | |
| Terminale | 18 | 13th |
After the 3 years of study of the second cycle, examinations are held for the Baccalauréat, which qualifies graduates for university entrance.
Follow with us the steps taken to build our school.
At the beginning, women had to had to walk to the near by river in the forest to carry dirty water on their hed in large buckets, to allow contractors to do their work.
We were then able to build our own well to provide the workers with clean water.
We could finally go to the next step of building our own cement water storage tank, to provide all facilities in the school,once built, with clean running water.
The cement water storage tank would function with an electric pump, with required from us to bring electricity to the school.
we were then able to build pipes and water faucets to provide all facilities, especially the boys and girls toilettes with running water to keep them clean and sanitary.
