Catholic Women Speak (CWS) is raising funds to support Byseee Preparatory School for Girls and Day Care Centre in Freetown, Sierra Leone. Our initial aim was to raise £300 per month during the Covid19 crisis, with a plan to establish a regular funding project. We have now committed to continue to send £300 per month, which provides regular support for teachers' salaries, school uniforms and supplies and maintenance, as well as contributing to more substantial projects. The building of a well which serves the school and the local community is now complete, and we are exploring future projects with the school's founders and organisers, Yema Jusufu and Edita Fofana.

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, 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 girls, particularly orphans, girls from broken homes, and single mothers. It follows the formal school curriculum but extends this to develop the girls holistically and spiritually. The aim is to help them 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. We are grateful to Chantal Götz, Director of the Fidel Götz Foundation, for agreeing to underwrite this project.

To find out more about Catholic Women Speak, please visit our website. You can read more about Gertrude and the Bysee school project at this link .