Ekudzeni (Swaziland) July 2007

Lynn Nestor and her family were chosen in 2001 to live for three months in a village called Ekudzeni (meaning “Far Away”) near Manzini in Swaziland. It was one of the first reality programmes for TV. They went with their 3 children then 12, 7 and 4. What started as a sort of experiment became their home. The village is a small one but includes nearly 40 children between 5 to 15. In 2001 there was a school but it was over ten miles away and up a mountain. There was no transport attached to the village. If the children could not make the school journey, they were not educated. Lynn and her husband Robert were inspired to help build a village school.

They approached the village Chief, who gave them a patch of land for the school. They raised enough for foundations to be laid. Local people were largely responsible for the building. The school that grew up is a very simple affair with no electricity. When the government heard about the school, they gave them a teacher on the condition that a house would be built for her, also that there would be proper toilets built and proper fencing around. In the expectation of this being carried out, the Government has also given them a simple bus service so that children from outlying villages could come to the school.

Sadly Lynn and Robert ran out of money and still needed to build the teacher’s house; wanted to open up the other two classrooms, fence the area and have a proper running water supply at the school so they can give the children a breakfast when they get to school. They are required to have the following in place before the start of the next academic year in January 2008. My mother Denise Lawson approached the ALMT and with the help of Louise Nathanson we are pleased after due diligence to be donating £20,000 to complete the teacher's accommodation, the buildings, buy the furnishings, pay for the boundary fence, pay the teachers’ salaries and buy stationery, and recreational playground equipment.