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Christina  Beattie

Christina Beattie is crowdfunding

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£1,505
raised of £5,000 target by 46 supporters

Iʼm raising £5,000 to send £300 each month to the Byseee school project in Sierra Leone, providing a holistic Catholic education and support for poor families.

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Catholic Women Speak (CWS) is raising funds to support Byseee Preparatory School for Girls and Day Care Centre in Freetown, Sierra Leone. All funds come from donations by supporters and friends of CWS, and 100% of all donations are sent to the project with no deductions for overheads. We currently send £300 per month, which funds a feeding scheme for the children who often arrive at school hungry, and provides support for teachers' salaries, school uniforms, and supplies and maintenance. Our funds have helped to dig a well which supplies fresh water for the school and the local community.

The school, which comes under the auspices of St Peter the Rock Parish in Calaba town in Freetown, is run by Yema (Gertrude) Jusufu and her sister Edita Fofana, who are both members of CWS. 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

Byseee school offers a wide range of educational and care facilities to women and children, particularly orphans, girls from broken homes, and single mothers. It follows the formal school curriculum but extends this to develop the children holistically and spiritually. The aim is to help children to recover a sense of personal dignity and self-esteem after the traumas of war and amidst the ongoing challenges of poverty, violence and abuse.

The holistic education and support offered by Byseee School, which is rooted in the Catholic tradition but informed by the particular challenges of gender-based inequality and violence against women and girls, expresses the ideals and visions of our global Catholic Women Speak network. While we are not a fund-raising or charitable enterprise, we seek to express our commitment to the promotion of the full human dignity of women and girls by offering practical support to Yema and Edita.

Thanks to a generous donation from Ursuline High School in Wimbledon, London, we have recently been able to provide computers to the school so that the older girls can gain essential IT skills before going on to high school. We are now raising funds to install solar panels because frequent power cuts interfere with the children's IT lessons.

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Updates

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  • Christina  Beattie1 month ago
    Christina  Beattie

    Christina Beattie

    1 month ago

    We started this project during lockdown in 2020. Our monthly donations help with the cost of running the school and provide the children with lunch once a week. In cooperation with Ursuline High School in Wimbledon, we've raised funds for a well and computers, and we're fundraising for solar panels. However, it's increasingly difficult to raise £300 every month. After discussing this with Yema, we agreed that we'll send £250 for the next three months, and after that we'll send £200 every month: https://www.catholicwomenspeak.com/byseeeproject.

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  • Christina  Beattie5 months ago
    Christina  Beattie

    Christina Beattie

    5 months ago

    Thank you to all who generously support our CWS Byseee School and Community Project. We could not maintain this commitment to send £300 every month without the support of our members and friends. No donation is too small, and all the money we receive goes to the project with no deductions for overheads. Please visit our website for updates and for the latest accounts: https://www.catholicwomenspeak.com/byseeeproject. Here are the children enjoying their weekly school lunch, funded by us.

    Update from the Page owner

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8 months ago

Christina Beattie started crowdfunding

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Page last updated on: 12/1/2024 23.26

Supporters

46

  • Celia Wexler

    Celia Wexler

    Dec 1, 2024

    Yema, Thank you for all you do! I wish I had more to give. Love, Celia

    £100.00

  • Mary Kennan

    Mary Kennan

    Dec 1, 2024

    Such an important cause

    £25.00

  • Ann and Maureen

    Ann and Maureen

    Dec 1, 2024

    We are very pleased to be able to support this important project

    £20.00

  • ariane van den Hof

    ariane van den Hof

    Nov 9, 2024

    £10.00

  • Mary Hanrahan

    Mary Hanrahan

    Nov 3, 2024

    Happy to support the school.

    £20.00

  • Rachel Caseby

    Rachel Caseby

    Nov 2, 2024

    £20.00

  • Anonymous

    Anonymous

    Nov 1, 2024

    £5.00

Christina  Beattie

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Christina  Beattie

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