Friday, August 6, 2010

More photos of great progress, & save the date (May 21 2011)

Hello everyone, we hope that you are all having a wonderful summer. A great big thanks to the generous few folks who have contributed over the past couple of weeks for the projects. We have enough funds to finish the first project! We are committed to working with the school for at least 5 years, and really appreciate the ongoing support that is coming from all over the community!

Please mark your calendars - our next benefit event for this project will be held on May 21, 2011 at the Gladstone Hotel. We thank the Gladstone Hotel for their amazing support for this project! More details on the benefit will be forthcoming.

We're pleased to see things take shape at Ecole St. Albert Le Grand. These are the latest photos from our nephew Peguy who is documenting the progress of the work with visits to Bazou (he lives in Douala). Without Peguy, this project would be very difficult to realize. He facilitates our communication with the Priest and the Principal of the school (we rely on his cell phone!) He is our eyes and ears and is doing an amazing job keeping us up to date on the amazing progress that you see in these photos!



Peguy also has some video footage of the work at the school, and we hope to receive that in the coming month and will share it as soon as it is available.

The focus of the first project has been to erect new internal walls for the school to divide the different classrooms. If the budget permits, some furniture will also be provided.





(...sorry for the sideways photo...I'm still learning some things about blogspot...)

As we mentioned in our last post, our next project is going to be starting in September! Starting September, the children in Bazou will be taught traditional music at school. As far as we are aware, this will be the first music program in elementary school in Cameroon.

The gentleman in the sideways photo is Bagante, and he is a very talented musician who lives in Bazou. He will be the music teacher. We're really looking forward to seeing and hearing the music that Bagante and the students at St. Albert Le Grand create together! If you are interested in contributing to this project, please get in touch. We will be funding the school to purchase their own instruments for the children to use at school.