Surprise school on the veranda

The plan was to visit Guinea-Bissau to see family and reconnect with old friends. What we didn’t expect was to find fifty or more children sitting on the veranda of Celestino’s mum’s house shortly after 7am.

With over 161,000 children in Guinea-Bissau not able to go to school because there are no schools available in their area, Celestino’s sister, Nene, had jumped at the chance to start a school in her home village, when given a donation of money by a visiting Brazilian Christian.

Over the next ten days our hearts broke as we watched the children sit on straw mats, without chairs, tables, books, or resources, chanting the alphabet and numbers 1–10 by rote. Surely we could do something to help!

Already carrying donations from friends and family in our home church and community, we were able to buy chairs, books and pencils and donate polo shirts to the three classes.

With so few agencies working in Guinea-Bissau, we came home with our hearts heavy knowing that unless we did something, there would be no further help for these children, or their school. But what if we could build them a school? And so the dream of “New Hope Guinea-Bissau” began…