MGHS Global fundraiser

Contributed

An alumnae association, composed of former students of the Methodist Girls High School in Freetown with the name MGHS Global, based in the United States of America, recently had a fundraiser to raise funds to assist the school. MGHS is one of the oldest secondary schools for girls in the country.

The theme of the fundraiser, according to one of the organisers, Mrs. Khadija Jalloh-Burkelo ( photo), is Back to Class, with the goal of donating 2000 backpacks to the cuurent students in the school. They also intend to help build 36 new classrooms to put an end to the current two-shifts system in the school because of the lack of space for the large number of students. This is a collective project with other past students in and out of Sierra Leone.

Khadija says the two-shifts system has negative effects on girls. They spend less hours in class and go home late and exhausted, she said.

Khadija, a senior professional nurse, explained that they were wearing the school uniform on the day of the fundraiser as a symbolic act to reach out to all past students in Freetown and the diaspora, to join them and help support the school.

We intend to join the Freetown branch to complete a building they have started because the school needs more classrooms to go to one shift, she said.

Khadija also pointed out that the school needs a computer room and more bathrooms. The school currently has five bathrooms for 2800 students. That is not hygienic, she said.

MGHS has budgeted to refurbish 25 bathrooms which we plan to help build after the fundraiser dance and dinner. The science labs, such as our Chemistry, Physics and Biology labs, need to be refurbished as we need our science streams to be re-established in the school. Not just Home Economics, etc, Khadija concluded.