A HUMANITARIAN couple have returned from Africa with positive news about the completion of their school construction project.
Roger and Linda Bullen, trustees of Mersea-based charity the Catherine Bullen Foundation, visit Namibia twice a year and since October 2015 they have worked to create a kitchen and dining area at Eiseb Primary School Hostel, which will provide a hygienic area for staff to prepare food.
At a cost of £85,000, the space will officially open in October.
While on the eight-week trip, the pair handed over a donated cheque for the project from the Mersea Island Lions, who raised £500.
Sophie Carter and other pupils at Thomas Lord Audley School, in Colchester, through their Every Child Deserves An Education group also handed over £281.
The presentation took place with traditional dance performances from the children of the San Bushman tribe.
Mr Bullen said: “Another task we had while we were there was to share knitted items made by ladies in West Mersea and Colchester to the San Bushman families living on a government resettlement farm in Ondera.
"Temperatures plummet to below freezing at night during the winter so they were really grateful.
The farm is near Oshivelo, towards the north of the country, where the clinic named after our daughter Catherine is situated.”
Mrs Bullen, who is a registered nurse, volunteered at the farm for three weeks and spent the same amount of time at the clinic of Otjimanangombe, which was built and opened by the foundation in 2008.
However, a change in Namibian Government policy, meant she had to register with the Nursing Council of Namibia and undertake an oral exam.
She said: “I was really apprehensive about it and felt like a student again. Luckily, I passed so as well as being a registered nurse in the UK, I’m now one in Namibia.”
The parents set up the foundation in memory of their daughter Catherine, who died aged 22.
She was a fifth-year medical student at Bristol University and contracted severe gastroenteritis when she began a safari in Namibia.
Visit namibia-aid.org.uk for more information.
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