As we had come back from our second joined trip to Nigeria, we both realised we were getting very close to having a school up and ready to provide education. But we were yet to have a headmaster, yet to have any teachers, and most importantly, yet to have any students!

After further interviews we finally found a local headmaster ready to start working together with us. He had multiple years of experience from running another primary school in the village and was looking for a new challenge – fully bought into our vision of providing free, quality education for local children who cannot afford it.

He subsequently started to recruit local teachers and assistants to fully staff the school to be ready to start education already in the autumn of 2025

As the school building was finalised and fit-for-purpose we invited children and their parents to a recruitment weekend for primary school students. We had nurtured some echoing worry in our head: “what if no one shows up”. But we could not have been more wrong. The courtyard of the school was overcrowded as more children than our capacity (of 300 students) had heard about the school and wanted to come study with us

It was equally an exciting day – understanding that we would not have a problem to fill our classroom – but also sad realising how many children there are in this village who needed quality education. We would never be able to serve all.

Our local directors did thorough investigations of all the applicants, to understand if they really needed free education, or if the in fact could pay for themselves.

In the end, we admitted over 200 students to start a short trial semester with us from September to the new year. This would be a great opportunity for us to see how things work in practise and learn whilst doing.

The autumn ran by smoothly, and we were ready to have a grand opening of the school in the new year starting January 2026.

As we together headed down to Nigeria for the third time, we could not contain our excitement. This was the BIG milestone week visit for us. The week when were suppose to have a school launch festival, engage with local media, be greeted by the king, meet our students for the first time. It felt like a dream come true. Several years in the making and the day had finally come.

We had almost all children show up for our Saturday launch festival together with all our teacher, local staff and interested external parties in the school project.

The day could not have been more of a success.

The day started with the local king attending to cut the ribbon and officially open the school.

Next, the children had prepared several performances. Local dances and speeches to show off what they already had been able to learn in the few trial months of school they had attended

At the end of the ceremony, Chuks and I got a chance to speak ourselves. Greet everyone and tell them how much this day meant to us. It was a very proud moment for both of us – and especially for Chuks who had his mother and sisters in attendance. They could not be more proud of him.

The day wrapped up with a traditional Nigerian fundraiser. It involves people in attendance going up to a microphone, thanking the founders and pledging a certain amount to the charity out of gratitude. We raised a surprisinglyhigh amount of money locally, given the state of the village. But the kind donations was so well received and will help us escalate some improvements we want to do with the school in the coming year.

A few days later, the children attended their first official day in school with us – on the 6th of January. It was an amazing buzzing atmosphere all around the school as we came by to visit in the morning.

Together we took the opportunity to do some interviews with both our teachers and some students. But also, to sit in and observe some of the classes. It felt unreal to sit in a classroom we helped build, listen to a teacher we had recruited educate students we had targeted for free education. We both agreed it was one of the best days of our lives.

A massive milestone had been met. But it is still only just the beginning for us.

This is our very first, of hopefully many, schools we build. We will now perfect its operations to make sure it gets smoothly run to high quality without too much regular oversight. And after that we will set sight on our next project to keep impacting lives of those who deserve a fair chance, just like the two of us.
That’s what the Infinity Branch is all about.