Couple’s fundraising helps school in Africa buy desks

It was all smiles for a ‘bush’ school in Africa with a coffee morning to rise funds for facilities.

Peter and Jacqui Hand and friends came together to fundraise for the Junju Primary School north of Mombasa in Kenya.

Jacqui’s cousin first alerted them to the school’s need for basic facilities after helping to finance piped water into the village, which previously relied on a crocodile infested river for drinking and washing needs.

After visiting the school in 2009, Jacqui and Peter, together with her sister and brother-in-law, Jo and Rowland Castle, launched a fund-raising project.

So far has it has paid for desks for 60 children as well as pens, pencils, paper and clothes.

More desks were paid for last year while yet another visit this month will deliver a suitcase of clothes for the children, and funding raised by the latest coffee morning at Twyford House.

“The project is very much on-going since the school was built with just bare walls,” said Jacqui.

She added: “What we take for granted they just haven’t got and, quite apart from rough stone floors that need cementing, the teachers badly need cupboards and chairs as well.”

The couple’s fund raising is boosted by the sale of donated second hand books outside their home in Cliff Road to visitors and tourists walking the coastal path.

“One weekend we took �37,”said Jacqui.

“People are very generous and we are so grateful for all the help we get from friends and supporters here in Sidmouth.”