Help that make the difference
October 1993, the school was in a mud hut where the children sat in logs on the floor and used corrugated tin sheeting for a blackboard. The teachers were unqualified.
15 years later, in 2008 conditions for the children had changed dramatically. Teaching by professional teachers in brick built school houses. Year around clean water, food and clothing.
From Wales to Uganda
Several years ago, Alwyn was doing a store collection for EZRA in the Co-op in Pontllanfraith. Whilst there, he started to talk to David Lewis, a Biology teacher from Bedwellty School. He told us to contact Clive Hughes, the person who was in charge of charity work in the school. I immediately recognised the name of a friend who had been in the sixth form with me. I rang him up and visited the school, which undertook to sponsor three of our children in Uganda, desperately needing help at that time.
Bedwellty Comprehensive School continued to tirelessly support us from that day to this. Every year we received a substantial cheque from money raised by the children and staff alike. For me, a special relationship developed with the school. It is so wonderful to see the children and young people of Wales giving so much in time and effort to those so much less fortunate than themselves.
Sadly, the school closed in July this year, but the school has had a plaque made, (which was presented to Beatrice at the school Harvest Festival) with the names of Bedwellty Comprehensive School and The King’s Primary School (our school in Uganda) on it. In between the two names is the Bedwellty School badge which is a PHOENIX!!! I had forgotten that the school motto was “rising up”. They see Bedwellty dying in Wales but rising up again in Uganda.
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