Blyth Bebside School donates equipment to Mali

Aug 12 2010 by David Black, The Journal

CARING pupils and teachers whose school has closed under an education shake-up have donated almost its entire contents to help needy children in one of the world’s poorest cities.

Scores of desks, chairs, tables, cupboards, text books, musical instruments and stationary from Blyth, Northumberland are being shipped off to provide vital learning resources for a fledgling school in Mali, West Africa.

They have been removed from Bebside Middle School, which is closing down as part of a switch to a two-tier system of primaries and secondaries in the town.

Next month the furniture and books will find a new home at a shanty town school set up in a community centre in Mali’s capital Bamako, by London-based charity African Workshop.

The Blyth pupils took part in a project last year which saw them swapping letters with the West African children.

Now enough equipment for up to 500 pupils has been stripped out of the school and is due to arrive in Mali in a shipping container in mid-September.

Ben Holt, founder of the African Workshop, said: “This is the most amazing donation. It will fully equip our community centre - where we run a pre-school plus art and music classes - and allow us to help the local schools where we send promising children to get an education.

“We will be there to meet the equipment when it arrives, and I can’t wait to see the faces of the children.”

Pictured: Karen Hagerty and Hazel Churm in Bebside Middle School