WARSAW, 10 September 2005 — Custodian of Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah is to donate $300,000 to the northern Polish village of Janikowo to allow it to turn an old school into a center for education and cooperation, officials said yesterday.
The village of Janikowo is home to Siamese twins Olga and Daria Kolacz, for whom Abdullah paid for a successful separation operation in January, when he was still Saudi Arabia’s crown prince.
“A few months ago we decided to build a center for education and international cooperation. Our greatest wish was that the king should allow us to name the school after him. We wanted to thank the king for all he has done for our twins,” said Mayor Andrzej Brzezinski.
Olga and Daria were 17 months old when a team of 50 doctors and nurses, led by Dr. Abdullah Al-Rabeea, separated them in a delicate, 15-hour operation. The twins had been joined by the back and the hip.
Two weeks ago, Al-Rabeea traveled to Janikowo to examine the two little girls.
“He took back with him to Saudi Arabia our request to the king to use his name for our center. On Wednesday, the Saudi Embassy in Warsaw told us he had agreed and, another bit of good news which took us by surprise, that he had donated $300,000 for the center,” Brzezinski said.
“Arabic and Arab culture will be taught at the center, along with other languages including English, German and French,” the mayor said.
The Saudi king’s donation would be added to funds the village already has for the school. “This will allow us to move forward more quickly, and to have the best audio-visual laboratories possible,” Brzezinski said.
