A husband-and-wife team from a small village in Essex have embarked on an ambitious mission to raise £100,000 to build another school for disadvantaged children in The Gambia.
Julie Maio, originally from Theydon Bois, on the edge of Epping Forest, has already helped to fund and build two schools in the West African country.
Now, the 65-year-old hopes to raise a further £100,000 to build a third school to give underprivileged children the opportunity to continue their education past the age of 12.
Ms Maio moved to The Gambia in 1994 with her Italian husband, Luigi Maio, where they set up the country’s first pizzeria and later opened a hotel.
She said: “From our first visit we just fell in love with The Gambia and knew this was where we wanted to spend the rest of our days.”
When friends opened a local school for children from poor backgrounds, Ms Maio offered her financial and administrative support.
At the time, there was no free state school in the whole country and Ms Maio’s pals – Joe and Fiona Kajue – wanted to change this, so they opened the Jofi School – both of their names combined.
Ms Maio added: “Joe and Fiona wanted to give children the best opportunities possible with education being the key to freedom, choice, and social emancipation here.
“They were the only two teachers, Joe taught the older children while Fiona taught the youngest. There wasn’t any money for wages, so Joe took a second job to support them all.”
It didn’t take long for the school to become very popular with Joe and Fiona needing to take on a third teacher.
School fees were kept very small, the equivalent of just a few pounds each term.
In July 2010, Fiona had an accident which required her to fly back to the UK for an operation. Joe remained in The Gambia to run the school, but a complication during Fiona’s operation which damaged her back meant she required a further operation and wouldn’t be able to cope on her own.
So, in November 2011, Ms Maio took over the running of the school’s finances and administration.
She said: “Our mission is to help as many children as we can with a good education.
“We started with the nursery school, then we built the primary school, and now we’re working towards providing secondary school education.
“The children here are desperate to go to school and we want to make it happen for them.
“We couldn’t do it without the very generous donations from these businesses, churches, and of course private sponsors.
“Education is key to freedom, freedom of choice, and freedom for the future.
“Young women should be able to choose if they want to work or have a family, young men need to be able to work in skilled jobs to support their families and pass down those choices to their own children.
“And this can all happen here, in school.”
Those interested in contributing to the cause can visit justgiving.com and search ‘Jofi School’.
