
Catholic Women Speak is crowdfunding
Weʼre raising £3,300 to support the work of Byseee Preparatory School for Girls and Day Care Centre in Freetown, Sierra Leone. Our target is £300 per month.
- Freetown, Sierra Leone
What is crowdfunding?
Crowdfunding is a new type of fundraising where you can raise funds for your own personal cause, even if you're not a registered nonprofit.
The page owner is responsible for the distribution of funds raised.
Story

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 until August 2021, by which time we hope to have assessed the longer term funding needs.
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 .
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Updates
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1 month ago
Catholic Women Speak
1 month agoShare this update to help us raise more
1 month ago
Catholic Women Speak
1 month agoHere is a photo of Byseee teachers at the Thanksgiving Service. Frustratingly, JustGiving only allows us to post one photo at a time on news updates!
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1 month ago
Catholic Women Speak
1 month agoHere is a photo of Byseee children and their parents at their thanksgiving service at St Peter the Rock Catholic Church in Freetown on Sunday, 13th December. Unfortunately during the service thieves broke into Yema's house and stole several items, including her computer and her radio. We hold Yema, Edita and all the children and their parents in our prayers. In these dark times, we draw hope from these children, and the future that is theirs through education. Thank you to all who continue to donate to enable CWS to support this project.
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Catholic Women Speak started crowdfunding
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Supporters
64
Mary Hanrahan
Jan 1, 2021
In solidarity and love.
£20.00
Adrienne Keller
Jan 1, 2021
Proud to be part of support for female education.
£40.00
Anonymous
Dec 31, 2020
Sorry this is late.
£100.00
ariane van den Hof
Dec 22, 2020
£20.00
Rachel Caseby
Dec 21, 2020
Wishing you all a very Happy Christmas!
£20.00
Thérèse Craine Bertsch
Dec 21, 2020
A very Merry Christmas and Hapoy and Blessed New Yearc
£40.00
Ruth
Dec 7, 2020
£40.00

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About the fundraiser

Catholic Women Speak
Freetown, Sierra Leone
Catholic Women Speak (CWS) is a forum of Catholic women from diverse cultures who share a common commitment to promote the dignity and equality of women in the Church and society, and to struggle for justice for the poorest and most marginalised women and children.