By Alison Calvert, founder of the Mariama Mae Nursery School

Earlier this year, a Mariama Mae School information leaflet was given to Lady Mary Jephcott, who later contacted me and invited Jo and I to meet with her to discuss the possibility of a donation from the Jephcott Charitable Trust.

Thank goodness for Jo, a very dear friend of mine who beavers away on her computer helping me in all sorts of ways towards the school. Our visit was very successful and we came away knowing clearly what we had to do to put together our application to the Trust.  

Again, thank goodness for Jo, because she did it so well that while I was still in Africa in April the news came through from her that we had been successful in our bid.  This enabled me to set in motion the completion of classroom three because the trust had donated £1,700, allowing us to put our strong roof on this classroom.

Thank you Mary for your help and guidance, it was invaluable and very much appreciated.

By Alison Calvert, founder of Mariama Mae Nursery School

In East Allington, the village where I live, The Wacky Races is ‘the event’ of the year and, thanks to Louise and all the others involved in this year's races, I was there with a stall.

It was a great day with lots of local people watching the go karts racing down the hill.  In the field were all the stalls and I had set mine up hoping to talk to people about the school and handing out flyers appealing for donations of bric-a-brac to keep me supplied for sales at markets and car boot sales.  

People were lovely and very interested in the Mariama Mae Project.  I had on sale chocolate fridge cake which several people had prepared for me, as I had only arrived back from Africa the evening before this event, so thank you to all of you who made this possible for me to be there selling cake.  

We raised £98 which I think was wonderful and since that day lots of bric-a-brac has been turning up on my door step. Thanks.