Are you a donor to the Byseee Project? Would you like to receive messages and updates from Yema and to let her know about your support? Tina Beattie has set up a new WhatsApp group. To join, please click on the purple box below.
Please note that our JustGiving account is discontinued, so all donations should be made through the link on this page. It was becoming increasingly difficult to manage the JustGiving site and to maintain personal contact with donors. Having a single source of donations helps me to manage our funds and to calculate overheads, which I currently cover without any deductions from donations. (Tina Beattie)
UPDATE - OCTOBER 2026
Yema continues to send updates and photos on WhatsApp. Here are photos she sent recently.
UPDATE - JULY 2026
Thank you to all our supporters who continue to give so generously. Yema keeps in regular touch with her thanks and appreciation, and with news of what the children are doing. The video below shows the older children celebrating their graduation from the primary school, as they move on to secondary school. They were invited to dress up as the future professionals they hope to become. It gives a lovely sense of the celebration, hope and joy that are such a part of the Byseee vision.
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
About the Byseee Project
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 boys as well as girls, one of its main purposes is to educate 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.
The children often arrive at school without having eaten. We fund one free school lunch a week.
School lunches
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.
The generosity of CWS members in supporting the Byseee Project means that, for the first time, we have generated surplus income in the ten months from 1st June 2025 to 31st March 2026. Donations totalled £2,514 during this period, which means we had £514 remaining after sending 10 monthly donations of £200. We were able to add £500 from this surplus to a grant of £6,000 received from a women's religious order who requested anonymity, which covered the total cost of £6,500 to install solar panels to provide electricity for the school. This work has now been carried out, and you can see the installation in the video above.
Our next plan is to raise funds to buy a school bus for the project. This will save the cost of hiring transport for school outings, and the bus can be hired out to generate income for the school when it is not being used. Maintenance and servicing will be carried out in the community.
It remains for me to say thank you again for the continuing generosity and support of all who make it possible for us to support this project. I have attached a budget summary below to show our income and expenditure for the last 10 months.
Tina Beattie
Past news updates and videos
