ELEVEN SCHOOLS ALREADY FUNDED!!
FIVE HAVE BEEN COMPLETED AND OPENED ....SIX MORE ARE WELL UNDERWAY!
We were very pleased to attend the opening ceremonies of GS Quebessi, which has been funded through Schools for Africa by a corporate donor from London, ....
and IPS Bamali, funded by Lambeth Academy.
"Education is the door to freedom, democracy and development" (Nelson Mandela)
Our aim is to raise money to build schools in rural Africa through our partner NGO Strategic Humanitarian Services (SHUMAS), Cameroon.
In addition to clean, hygienic and well-constructed classrooms, we aim to ensure clean drinking water and sanitation facilities are available at each of the schools we support, in order to help improve the health of the children.
Secure On-Line donations to Building Schools for Africa can now be made through JustGiving.
£10 will buy a set of wall charts for a classroom.
£25 will buy a set of text books for a teacher.
£80 will buy a sewing machine.
£350 will help us build toilets for a school.
£500 will help us install clean drinking water.
£3500 will pay for the building of a new classroom.
Since 2003, SHUMAS, our partner organisation in Cameroon, has received over 500 applications from rural villages asking help to rebuild their local schools. Of this number, an initial 150 were identified as 'top priority' because of the state of delapidation of the buildings.
Building Schools For Africa started fundraising in April 2007. In our first two years we have funded the reconstruction of eleven schools. It costs so little to build a village primary school in Cameroon, and each school improves the lives of thousands of children.
Will you help us?
Building Schools for Africa is now a charity (registered charity number 1127661).
Please note: whilst we have modified our name a little - to Building Schools for Africa - our website address remains the same: www.schoolsforafrica.co.uk
Funds recently received
We are very happy indeed to announce that, since our return from Cameroon in November, we have been able to secure funding for the building of two new schools: a primary school in the very remote village of Mbande and a secondary school on the outskirts of the town of Kumbo. The building of these schools will start before the end of January. We will also be able to start work on the village primary school at Njinikejem. This is fantastic news for both us and SHUMAS - and brings our total number of schools funded in the past 21 months to 11 !!
Please look at our Building Schools page for details and pictures.
One real headache for our team since our return has been the plummet of the pound against the euro. Cameroon's currency is tied to the euro, and so costs for our school building programme have gone up and up in a matter of weeks. Inflation in Cameroon is also taking its toll - but the huge need for durable schools is still there, and we feel that we can't let the vagaries of the currency markets put us off our stride. What we manage to achieve by working with the village communities through SHUMAS is truly remarkable and we will continue to raise as much as we can to fund these desperately needy projects.
On the bright side - we have received fantastic support in recent months: more than £70,000 has been donated since our return from Cameroon in November 2008, and we have lots of plans afoot for more fundraising.
Our Trip to Cameroon
The Schools for Africa team, including our new member Lou Dorley-Brown, returned from a short, but very exciting and exhausting trip to Cameroon in mid-November. We took with us three members of the Lambeth Academy team.
During our very brief stay, we were very pleased to meet with Government ministers, the British High Commissioner and the head of Kumbo Council. We attended the handing over of two schools which had been funded by Schools for Africa and a third, funded by AidCamps International, and we visited another 20 schools which are are in desparate need of our help. It was a great privilege for us to be able to see the ENORMOUS boost to the morale of a village community that the construction of a new school provides, and we have all come back with renewed enthusiasm to raise as much as we can to help provide decent schools for the children of Cameroon.
We are very pleased to announce that construction is now complete at the following schools, thanks to the generosity of our supporters:
CPNS Ndzevru - funded by the Sleaford Community Church, Lincolnshire.
GS Baju-Njap - funded by Clymac Ltd., Leicestershire
GS Fungeh - funded by Clymac Ltd., Leicestershire.
GBSS Kimbo - funded by a company which prefers anonymity. (to be completed by August 09)
GS Njinikejem - funded by Percol Coffee
GS Mbande - funded through a private donation
THANK YOU to everyone who has promised us help in the future. We will make sure that the money you raise will help to provide a bright future for the children of Cameroon.
