JANUARY 2005
Dear Friends and Supporters,
The
Queens and Kings School, Port Harcourt, Nigeria
A
very happy new year to you all.
 The Tsunami disaster has demonstrated to us how small a place
the world is now and how people all over the world are effected
by what goes on on the other side of the world. It has
also identified for us the importance of education and the sharing
of resources by the developed countries with those still not
developed.
It is only now that I can report to you a very productive nine
week trip to Nigeria from the 27th October to the 31st December During
the last two weeks I have been in the UK looking after family
affairs and I have only just sat down in my office
in the Isle of Man.
A very big thank you to all those who supported the Mustard Seed activities in
Nigeria in 2004. Your support was magnificent and allowed us to
 1. Finish
decking the whole of the ground floor – ten classrooms, the office, toilets,
cloakroom and the verandah. This is a fantastic achievement as the ironwork
for the decking was so very expensive.
2. Finish
plastering the whole building inside and out – how wonderful this looks.
3. Put
up fences (concrete blocks) to show clearly The Queens and Kings School property.
What can I say but thankyou, thankyou, thankyou. It was lovely that Ros
was able to join me for the last three weeks of my trip and together we had a
marvellous time monitoring all this good progress.
 During the earlier part of my trip I was very busy with the existing school. Last
term we had to dismiss Mr. Jumo for unacceptable behaviour. This was disappointing
but it gave me an opportunity to do some teaching and to understand better the
challenges of education in Nigeria. I can report that The Queens and Kings
School is performing very well. I ran the end of First Term Exams in December
and I was very pleased with the performance of most of the children.
We had an excellent PTA meeting and the parents are very happy with the progress
to date and they are very excited about the development of the permanent site.
Now, in January 2005, we have 63 pupils, four teachers, a minder and Stella our
headmistress who is also teaching.
 The next opportunity we have is to do with access to our permanent site where
we are still experiencing access problems. It is looking as though we should
purchase the remaining two intermediate plots of land between the two pieces
we already have acquired in order to solve the access problem once and for all
(see diagram below).
The school currently has acquired the two pieces of land A and C = 3.5 + 1.5
= 5.0 plots
and it looks as though we should now purchase B 2.7 plots. This would give
us 4.2 plots of land by the side of the new school building which we can use
for access to the site, for a school car park and playground for the children
with room for play equipment too. The deposit which may be required this
month, is £3,000/$5,600 and the balance of £2,800/$5,200 would be
payable by the end of February.
lots of love to you all
Trevor
Gratitude
We are very grateful indeed to the one who gave us the money she had put aside
to build a shed, to those who took part in the Christmas Concert in Sheffield,
to those who made Christmas cards, to those who took part in the Table Top sales,
to the one who has given us money for milk for the school children, to all those
who are continuously giving by standing orders, and to all those who gave individual
donations. Many, many thanks to you all. |
