She hopes to see La'angum become a model for other schools in the area, sharing best practices for better results.

Community effort

The school's name, La'angum, means teamwork in Mampruli.

It's a fitting name, Iddi-Gubbels said, because the community itself builds each room of the school.

In 2008, the community came together to build a prekindergarten classroom, a storeroom, a small office for the teachers and a big pavilion. It was quite a feat considering the village has no running water or electricity.

That year, about 40 bright-eyed pre-K students came to the school.

The next year, the people of the village built a kindergarten classroom and added another group of students. Every year since, they have added a classroom and filled it with students. This September, the original pre-K students attended the school's premiere third-grade class.

Soon, ground will be broken for a fourth-grade classroom.

Recently, a generous donor offered the school two grants of $10,000 each to aid in building the school, but the grants are dependent on Iddi-Gubbels finding matching donations.