UPDATE - JUNE 2025
Greetings to all our friends and supporters. Thanks to your continuing generosity, we have been able to send £200 every month so far this year without any significant shortfall. As you can see from the video, the children are thriving and the school and nursery continue to provide them with a safe and nurturing environment in which to flourish.
Many fundraising projects use images of human misery and poverty to move people to donate. The children in the Byseee school and nursery come from a poor community with many challenges and struggles, but they are happy and stimulated in the learning environment that Yema and her team work so hard to sustain. We seek to reflect that joyful and hopeful reality in our photographs and videos. We are pleased to be a small part of this project, which provides a holistic Catholic education to young people in a country with tragically high rates of infant and maternal mortality and violence against women and girls. It is a small but significant way of contributing to a better future for the children and their families.
Yema's recent medical tests in Nairobi addressed some issues with her health which have been resolved, and she is back in Freetown running the school. As always, she sends her thanks and greetings to all who support the project.
Please continue to hold the community in your prayers, and thank you again for your support.
Here is a photo of Yema and other CWS members at the Vatican.
All funding for the Byseee Project comes from individual donations from CWS supporters. 100% of all money donated is sent to the project via Western Union. There are no deductions for overheads, which are covered separately.
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Thank you for supporting our community project. Every pound we raise goes towards providing education and support for children and their families in one of the world's poorest countries.
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BYSEEE SCHOOL AND COMMUNITY PROJECT, CALABAR TOWN, FREETOWN, SIERRA LEONE
A holistic Catholic education for girls
The school, which comes under the auspices of St Peter the Rock Parish in Calaba town in Freetown, offers a wide range of educational and care facilities to women and children, particularly orphans, girls from broken homes, and single mothers. While the school takes some boys as well as girls, its main focus is on educating girls to give them a sense of personal dignity and self-esteem after the traumas of war and amidst the ongoing challenges of poverty, violence and abuse.
Why Byseee?
When asked to explain the puzzling spelling of the name "Byseee", Yema wrote that their late mother was asked to start a girls' school by parents in the community. She had six children - three girls and three boys - and she used the initials of each of her children to name the school:
Bernadette - Yema - Sydney - Edward - Elis - Edita = Byseee
A well for drinking water
In addition to helping with salaries, maintenance, and learning materials, our monthly contributions have funded the digging of a well that provides clean drinking water to the school and the community.
School lunches
The children often arrive at school without having eaten. We fund one free school lunch a week. If we could attract more donations, we would increase this to two lunches a week.
Our Partnership with Ursuline High School, Wimbledon
Thanks to generous funding from Ursuline High School in London, Wimbledon, we have been able to provide the school with computers so that girls can learn IT skills before going to high school.
Past news updates and videos
