About FCRS

In 2005, after graduating from university, 24-year-old Tanya Walmsley fulfilled a dream by travelling alone through West Africa.  She eventually arrived in Conakry, the capital of Guinea, where she volunteered to work at the Conakry Refugee School, becoming its first western volunteer.  While she was there she became aware that the school faced imminent closure because it could not afford to pay the rent on the school premises.

 
Moved by the plight of the children attending the school Tanya appealed for help to her parents in the UK.  They immediately sent out the £60 the school needed for the month’s rent.  Other friends made donations which gave the school enough to pay the next two months’ rent.  At this point Tanya’s mother, Ruth, took up the cause of the school and, with the help of her husband and a few friends, formed a support organisation called Friends of Conakry Refugee School (FCRS) with the aim of raising funds for the school and establishing a system of regular consultation to ensure that these funds would be directed to where they were most needed.