My next planned project is the total refurbishment of a 3-classroom primary school in Kono Town, Freetown, Sierra Leone. I first visited this impoverished community school, which receives no government funding, in November 2023. There are currently 116 children, aged four to eleven, attending classes at the school.

The buildings were in a very poor state of repair then and things have got progressively worse and came to a head recently with the onset of the rainy season. The galvanised zinc roof is in desperate need of total replacement as it is leaking in lots of places and this has caused extensive damage to the classroom ceilings, which, as you can see, also need replacement. The ingress of water has also caused damage to the general fabric of the building and as a result all the classrooms need to be totally redecorated, as does the exterior of the teaching block. There is also a need for extra classroom furniture as not all the children have desks to sit at and we also need to install proper blackboards in each room as currently the “blackboard” is just an area of the wall which has been painted black! – which is not really very functional.

The budget for the project, with the current material costs & exchange rate, is £4,550. Currently I have £500 towards the project but  I am also intending to undertake a sponsored event and will start a Just Giving page when I have sorted out the details of my sponsored event.