Schools For Africa

Building a Future for These Communities

Our Progress to Date

THIRTY SEVEN SCHOOLS NOW FUNDED!!

Five schools, at Ntseimbang, Menjung, Quebessi, Bamali and Roh Meluf, were opened in 2007/8 and are now running successfully. Another seven, at Njap, Fungeh, Mbande, Njinikejem, Kumbo, Ndzevru and Achailam, were opened in December 2009.

Pictures of all these schools can be found on our Buildings Schools for Africa Facebook page.

Pictures of the schools opened in 2010/11 are now on the Building Schools page on this website.

All the schools pictured below have now been constructed!

Many of them have been formally opened - others are still awaiting their final coat of paint before their opening ceremonies. We are gradually collecting together the pictures of these new schools and they will be posted in this column as soon as possible.

GS Buh

CSS Lassin

G.S. Ber

C.S. Idenau

GS Abang has no school building at all. It is currently borrowing this house

GS Engomba in the South Region

GTC Jakiri

Local house being used as a schoolroom in the village of Mot

GS Ndengue, South Region Cameroon

CS Mayo Darle, North Region Cameroon

GS Ndegvaya, Extreme North Region

GPNS Ntoh-Nseh, NW Region

The CETIC Technical School in Goulfey, Extreme North Region has also been constructed. This is a completely new school in one of the most remote desert regions of Cameroon where building is very difficult. We look forward to the news that this school is complete.

Building Schools for Cameroon

The UN's second Millenium Development Goal

Ensure that, by 2015, children everywhere, boys and girls alike, will be able to complete a full course of primary schooling.

Our aim is to help to achieve this goal by raising 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.

"Education is the door to freedom, democracy and development"

(Nelson Mandela)

Donate Online

Secure On-Line donations to Building Schools for Africa can now be made through JustGiving.

£40 will buy 10 sets of primary school uniforms
£135 will buy a sewing machine or a set of carpentry tools
£235 will buy 50 text books for the children to share
£400 will help us build toilets for a school.
£500 will help us install clean drinking water.
£5000 will help us build a new classroom.

Help Us Build a School

Each year, SHUMAS, our partner organisation in Cameroon, receives hundreds of applications from rural villages asking help to rebuild their local schools. From these they ascertain which communities really are in need of help and then visit sometimes as many as 100 villages per year, to determine which schools are 'top priority', because of the state of dilapidation of the buildings. These are the schools that we are raising money for.

Building Schools For Africa started fundraising in April 2007. To date, we have funded the construction of 135 classrooms at 37 schools, and there are more in the pipeline. 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?

Latest News

Building Schools for Africa is a UK registered charity, number 1127661.

Welcome to Gompels!

We are so pleased to welcome Gompels Healthcare to our list of supporters. Their generous support is going to help us to reconstruct another crumbling school during the next building season.

Further Support from Market Makers!

There was great excitement 'in the office' when we got the news that Market Makers have decided to fund another significant project through BSFA this year. Three schools (two primary and one secondary) in Bangourian in the West Region will each benefit from three classrooms, a Head Teacher's office and a new toilet block with hand-washing facilities. This will be an enormous boost to the community ... but it doesn't stop there! Market Makers will also fund the provision of a clean water supply to the village and will supply an additional well at the Medical Centre which they are also refurbishing and re-equipping. Finally, they are funding the development of Micro-credit and Micro-Enterprise in a quarter of Kumbo, in the NW Region.

This approach of Integrated Rural Development is a specialism of our partner NGO, SHUMAS, and we are so delighted that, with the kind of support that we enjoy from our Corporate donors like Market Makers, Clymac and many others, we are able to help remote rural communities really start to see their development goals become a reality.

Bangouraian Chefferie Primary, one of the schools to be rebuilt

Millennium Development Goals

SHUMAS has recently been appointed by the Cameroonian government as inspectors of the progress towards the achievement of the UN's Millennium Development Goals in NW Region. This is a great feather in the cap of our partner NGO and we congratulate them.

More support from the business world

Welcome aboard to two more companies that are helping us to build more schools. Pageant Media (London) have funded the reconstruction of CBC Mbot and Market Makers (Portsmouth) are funding the construction of both nursery classrooms and primary school classrooms in Nseh. Construction is already underway and these schools are expected to be finished early in 2012.

and welcome also to Frankie and Benny's Restaurant in Portsmouth who have recently set themselves the challenge of raising £5,000. Good luck with that everyone.

A new initiative means the possibility of new text books at the schools that we fund. See details on our What We Aim To Do page.

Yet more schools - thanks to Clymac

We are SO grateful to Clymac Ltd for its continued support of our school building projects. This year Clymac has funded the reconstruction of CSS Lassin in the NW Region, CS Mayo Darle in the North and CETIC Goulfey and GS Ndegvaya, both of which are in the Extreme North Region.

2012 sees the start of a new project also funded by Clymac - the construction of a dormitory block for the disabled trainees/trainers which SHUMAS proudly helps to become independent. This dormitory will transform the lives of the trainees, many of whom often experience great difficulty whilst traveling to the training centre where they learn their trade skills. Raymond, pictured below, is the trainer in the jewelery making workshop and will be one of those to benefit from the new dormitory block.

Clymac's continued support for BSFA inspires other businesses to support us too.

Funding for three more schools from America!

This wonderfully generous donation, which resulted from the launch of the computer game Civilization V, has enabled more than a thousand children in Cameroon to study in clean, hygienic classrooms for the first time this year. The funds have been used to reconstruct GS Abang and GS Ndengue in the South Region and GS Muteff in the NW Region.

Schools in the West supporting schools in Cameroon

We are really proud of all the students in the West who make such enormous efforts to help Cameroonian children get a good start in life through education.

Just recently the Lawn Primary School in Swindon sent us a donation, raised by their Year 4 pupils. Thank you so much to everyone who took part.

Trip to Cameroon 2011

Nick and Nicky Hayward took a small group of supporters with them, including three members of staff from Market Makers, when they visited Cameroon in November 2011. They witnessed the handing over of many of the projects funded by BSFA supporters last year as well as visiting the schools that are still under construction. They were also present at a very significant meeting in the capital city, Yaounde, when SHUMAS and the Government Minister for Secondary Education signed a protocol agreement in which the Government agreed to support SHUMAS in its school building programme. Tim Fisher, the British Deputy High Commissioner, was also present at this occasion.

Two very successful projects by AidCamps International volunteers

Details of these two projects, held in the villages of Bambui and Mbeunkong, are on our Volunteering page.

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.