In late March last year, Alan's Africa launched an appeal in order to establish a new secondary school in Kono Town, Sierra Leone, as at the time children were walking up to 5 miles each way to attend classes.

The plan was split into 3 phases:

1. to build a 2-classroom block with an office, staffroom and store.

2. to build a small toilet block.

3. to extend the teaching block with an additional 2 classrooms.

Phases 1 and 2 were completed ready for the opening of the new school last September. In November myself and Barry, a retired builder friend, visited and started to build classroom 3, which was ready for the start of term in January 2024 and at the same time we built the foundations for classroom 4.

Having consulted with the community, we deviated slightly from the original plan as they felt that the refurbishment of a disused well on the site, and water harvesting on the toilet block, complete with a handwash station, should take priority over the building of classroom 4. The well provides clean water for the school and surrounding houses and benefits around 300 people. The handwash station has greatly improved general sanitation.

The total cost of classroom 4 is, at the current exchange rate, £5,200. I have received a donation of £1,000 from a charitable trust to "kickstart" the appeal and have another £1,200 allocated for the project already. The goal is to have the new classroom ready for the start of the coming academic year in September.

I am undertaking a 15 mile sponsored walk on July 26th (the day before my 71st birthday) to hopefully raise the remaining funds to complete the project.

About Alan's Africa

I first visited Sierra Leone for 11 days in 2005 as a Rotary volunteer with the charity Mercy Ships, thinking it would be a "one off life experience". The trip was life changing for me and I have now visited the country 14 times. In January 2007 I began working directly with a school on the outskirts of Freetown and set up "Alan's Africa (an approved project of Banbury Rotary Club but is very much my personal project). Since 2007 we have funded the building of 44 classrooms, 10 toilet blocks, sunk 3 wells and re-furbished a further 4; provided a small home for a disabled young man, set up a micro-credit scheme and many other small projects, all making a "real difference" to the lives of Sierra Leonians.

A total of £397,650 has been raised since 2007.

Thank you for your support.