Ely Hereward Rotary club have won the John Grant trophy - awarded by the Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire Rotary District - for the best international project.

The club has been supporting the Mansa Colley Bojang School in the Gambia since 2012. The school was founded in 2010 by a remarkable community leader called Mucki Bojang, in a part of the country where there was no education for primary school children.

The school has grown fast and now has six classrooms and 300 pupils.

The Hereward Rotary Club has supported the school since 2012, and its first project was to pay for the building and equipping of two classrooms and sending books for the school library.

During the year July 2015 to June 2106, the club raised money for further projects, and with the help of a Rotary District grant, equipped a chicken house for egg production and paid for 500 one day-old chicks, essential medicines and sufficient feed for their first year.

Within six months the chickens were producing 400 eggs a day, making them the fifth largest producer of eggs in the Gambia, and providing an income of £10 a day for the school.

Not only does the scheme generate income for the school - which receives no government money - but it also improves the nutrition of the children and their families, with some eggs being given away to the neediest children. The schoolchildren help run the unit and learn valuable skills in animal husbandry, business and teamwork.

The club also raised enough money to pay for much needed toilets for the nursery classes.

Club member Janet Porter received the trophy from the district governor in Ipswich last month, and the club is now planning other ways it can contribute to the development of the school and to help this poor community educate its way out of poverty.

For more information visit Mansa Colley Bojang School on Facebook.