Faith

Richard Budd, from Fordington, first went to the remote Nuba Mountains with the Bishop of Sherborne Tim Thornton.

A photographer, Richard was commissioned by the Diocese of Salisbury to take pictures of the Bishop's visit.

The bricks, made from rainwater & dung

There, he met a student who told him his school was to shut because there was no money to keep it open. 

Once back home in Dorchester Richard and wife Claire decided they had to help, and set up the Grace Secondary School campaign.

Now, several months on, Richard and his wife Claire Budd have returned to Sudan to see the progress on the new school - and the results of their hard fundraising work.

Richard and Clare helped measure out the 'footprint' of the Grace Secondary School on a huge piece of land, and saw some of the 36,000 bricks to be used to build the school, all made using water left over from the rainy season and from dung from cattle that had been specially moved closer to the building site.

All of it had been paid for by the funds raised back home.

Grace will be the only school for miles around

Fundraising   

Richard and Claire have organised collections and events, including a fashion show and a Christmas ball, to raise the money needed to build and run the school.

So far they've raised £15,000 of their £40,000 target.

Richard said: "The young people in the Nuba Mountains have been delighted to find out that people from far away care enough to take part in this amazing project.

"Every single penny we collect goes to the school."

The old Grace Secondary school, the only one in an area the size of England, consisted only of mud huts, and the structure had been badly damaged by seasonal heavy rainfall.

The school originally had support from fundraisers in New Orleans, but after Hurricane Katrina struck the US city, the people there could no longer support the project and the school faced closure.