Schoolchildren raise £2,500 for water wells

A school of over 600 pupils in Sierra Leone have their own fresh water, via a well, thanks to the children of St Paul’s School who fundraised for Action4Schools.

The children did so well that they not only met their £2500 target, there was a healthy surplus.

A special assembly at the school was attended by both Jimmy Bruzon from Action4Schools and Lewis Stagnetto from the Nautilus Project, who received a donation of £200.

Mr Bruzon had visited the school and told them about the Regent Village Primary Schools having no access to clean water.

As a thank you to the St Paul’s, Regent Village school made a plaque from wood and carved out the countries’ two flags and engraved the words: “We thank you and appreciate your support. We hope and pray for a long standing relationship.”

A team in St Paul’s, comprised of head teacher Jerry Aguilera, deputy head Genevieve Vinet, humanities co-ordinator Monica Piri and English co-ordinator Nichola Navas, came up with a way to fundraise the £2,500 needed to build the well.

“We try and do a sponsored event. And in the past, it's been things like sponsored spelling. But then a couple of years ago, we changed it to a sponsored poem because we felt it was really important for our pupils to experience poetry experience, reciting poetry in front of an audience and learning something together,” Ms Navas told the Chronicle.

The idea of water, and the wells in particular, came from Ms Piri who explained that in 2021 they held a project-based learning day on water.

The children did displays looking at filtering, getting dirty water and filtering it themselves.

“Also looking at just water, floating and sinking and sea creatures. So the whole week, everything that we did was based on water, freshwater or saltwater,” Ms Piri said.

See more here https://www.chronicle.gi/st-pauls-funds-w…-in-sierra-leone/