Diana Vasconcelos has raised around three thousand dollars for the project via online campaigns but hopes to reach her goal of twenty thousand dollars to rebuild the school which she says currently has “no conditions to host the children.”
The building is currently being used by girls from the Angel Girls Educational & Rehabilitation Centre, which was set up around 10 years ago for vulnerable girls of ages five to 13 in the Mathare Slums, to provide them with basic education.
But, Ms. Vasconcelos says, the school building needs knocking down and reconstructing.
Originally from Almada, the 28-year-old first travelled to Kenya in 2014 where she took part in a voluntary project to build another school in Kibera, in the suburbs of Nairobi.
A fundraising drive named ‘Há Ir e Voltar’ was launched last week and, Ms. Vasconcelos says, she would like work on the school to start by April.
“We want to start the work within a month, more or less, as the collection of funds permits and gradually build it up with the help of the parents of the children”.
She adds: “There are no words or pictures that could ever show what it is really like here. But there are also no words that can reproduce the joy and hope that is seen on the faces of 78 girls from Angel Girls, a school lost in the Mathare slum, also on the outskirts of Nairobi.”
For more information, Facebook Diana Vasconcelos or see: www.youcaring.com/angel-girls-for-educational-and-rehabilitation-center-530686.
Alternatively, follow Diana Vasconcelos’ blog on: https://hairevoltar.wordpress.com.