In 2022 we were told about a nursery school that needs help in a village about 20 minutes drive from our village, Marakissa. There we met Esther the head teacher who is fully qualified and absolutely dedicated to providing a good start to the education of the local children. There are two classrooms and the number of pupils varies, when we first went there were 54 children. Lessons are taught in English but this is not the children’s first language. Adults that have never been to school have children that have never spoken English before the day they start school. What makes the teacher’s job doubly difficult is the children may speak different tribal languages.

The school had been built by the local council but has no funding. Esther told me about a lady who visited them from Sweden earlier on in the year and decided to support them. She took lots of pictures and set up a face book page and a funding page and received lots of donations for the school. The lady provided money for a wall to be built around the play ground, bought gates and told the parents they didn’t have to pay any money for the children to go to school as her charity would fund everything. She brought equipment and resources and Esther and the teacher were very thankful to this lady.

Then the lady said she wanted the school to be transferred to her name, when they told her this couldn’t happen she came with a couple of vans and took everything away. They are devastated.

Esther had to tell the parents they would again have to pay a small fee but it does not cover the teacher’s wages, their work is almost voluntary but they do it so the children have a local school to go to.

With our support the walls have been completed, gates erected and toilet doors have been replaced.

Thanks to donations from others they have managed to have one class room floor tiled but the other classroom still has an uneven concrete floor.