APRIL 2006

Since our last visit Badala had up sticks and moved to a new compund. No one bothered to tell us!! It would appear that the school committe had a disagreement with the owner of the land and they had to move. They dismantled the classrooms and moved to a compound owned by the chairman of the committee.

We went to Badala Nursery School to take their presents from sponsors.We also had a meeting with the teachers and committee about wages and the buiding of a new school. We were adament that we would not build a school until they gave us the land and they still would not agree to this. We therefore decided to provide them with the funds to build a new temporary classroom block as the old one was too small and also falling down. This was to be finished before we went home but unfortunately was not,

Both of us left the school feeling that there is not much more we can do for this school and would discuss it further on our return to the UK.

We went to see the school at Bafuloto and were moved to tears at the state of the classrooms and felt that Alex had found us a good school to help. The two classrooms were an old goat shed, which the goats still frequented and the children had concrete blocks to sit on.

We spent an awful lot of time going to all the different Government departments to make sure the transfer was all legal and above board. We eventually achieved this and were then able to get some quotes for the building of a school with two classrooms, a teachers office and a store room, and was going to cost about £12.000. A big task!!

We were also able to get the local carpenter to make new desks and chairs for the existing classrooms and make some more for the new classrooms when they were built. There are about 50 children in this school with two teachers. We had also shipped out some goalposts and teaching aids which we set up at the school. On the same shipment were pens, pencils, chalk, exercise books and other items of stationery, together with a tee shirt for each of the pupils fron "Tennis Works" our sons Tennis Acadamy in Milton Keynes.

On our return to the UK, we reflected on the enormity of the task we had set ourselves, and the first thing we decided to do was become a Registered Charity. This we did on 17th August, 2006 and were now able to claim "Gift Aid" on all donations from tax paying supporters.

We set about raising money and were helped by Wendover Middle School, Aylesbury Grammer School, Waddesden Village School and a very large contribution from The Aylesbury Music Centre through concerts. We also had a large individual donation and all this enabled us to raise enough money to start the Building at the end of the rainy season in September 2006. The idea was that it would be finished by the time we went out again at Easter 2007.