Aid for Angola

Last month (May 2005) saw Bodmin College present ten blackboards for schools in north-eastern Angola to ex-pupil and Christian misionary Ruth Hadley. Headteacher, Mr Bob Mitchell, handed over the equipment to Miss Hadley who was a former deputy Head Girl back in the early 1970s. The students of the College had raised the money by holding a non-uniform day to purchase the blackboards, various numeracy aids, exercise books and writing materials. This was on top of  66kg of stationery items the students had donated in a collection earlier this year.

Ruth Hadley has worked for 23 years in Angola, a country in southern Africa that until 2002 had known 40 years of war. The infrastructure of the country was destroyed and the education system was not functioning. Literacy is 42% in Angola. While the government has started to rebuild schools in the major towns, it has been the Christian churches that have risen to the challenge of rebuilding the rural schools.

Phil Hadley, Ruth's younger brother and a History teacher at the College, visited Angola last summer and went with Ruth to the village of Luma Cassai. Phil said, "In a village 40 miles from the nearest tarmac road, with no electricity, gas or running water, the villagers showed me their school. It was a room divided by a wooden partition with no chairs or desks, a blackboard painted on one end, no windows and bullet holes all over the walls. here 120 students had started their education now that the war was over. I promised my school back in Cornwall would help."

The students in Bodmin, used to the latest inter-active whiteboard technology, with well furnished classrooms, science labs and computer suites, were moved by the plight of the children in Angola. The fundraising efforts were well supported by students and staff, raising the £800 to buy the boards in one day.

Mr Bob Mitchell, Headteacher, said, "It is good for the students to be involved in charitable fundraising and it is excellent to have that personal link so the students can see where their efforts are going. We will get photographs back of the boards in action and our students will see that their efforts can really make a difference."

Ruth, who was on a short visit home to see her family in Bodmin, Cornwall, said, "The efforts of my old school have been tremendous. They have done so much. They have not only helped the school at Luma Cassai but the schools in several villages in the area where I work." Ruth flew back to Angola on Friday 10th June.

Ruth's home church, St Austell Gospel Hall, have provided the chairs and desks for the school at Luma Cassai. The cost of shipping the goods out is being met by the Christian Charity Medical Missionary News which is based in Essex. At the College it was the JAM Club, a lunchtime Christian group who did the packaging and sending of the materials. It is hoped all the equipment and supplies will be in place by the start of the new Angolan school year in February.

The College has shown a generous spirit in this academic year. It also sent 19 sacks of clothing to the Blue Peter Appeal supporting the Red Cross Refugee Tracing Programme in Angola, raised money to buy Shelterboxes for the Tsunami Relief, supported Comic Relief and raised money for local cancer charities as well.

Photo Guide

From top to bottom:
1) The presentation at Bodmin College by Headteacher Mr Bob Mitchell and students to Ruth Hadley in May 2005;
2) Children outside one of their homes in the village of Luma Cassai;
3) Children lining up to go to school. Note the white coats - the standard school uniform in Angola. Note also that many are carrying a chair or tin to sit on;
4) The school building in Luma Cassai remained standing through the Civil War but lost its windows and is full of bullet holes in the walls;
5) Cornish missionary Ruth Hadley teaching literacy to Angolan children under a tree in a bush village in Angola;
6) A legacy of 40 years of war - Angola is littered with land mines. Here a British financed team demine an area near the main Luena-Saurimo road.

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