RETURN TO THE GAMBIA 10TH - 17TH JANUARY 2007
Just before Christmas 2006 I received a message to say that the first stage of the renovations at Giddah Sanchaba - The Robert Kemp Memorial School - were complete and could I send the payment for the labourers.
Although I had received photos of the work that had been carried out and it all looked as though it was rather a good job, I wanted to see it with my own eyes!
A quick dash to the travel agents and myself and my mother were booked on a flight on 10th January.
Little did I know that we had an extremely busy week ahead of us !
On our arrival we arranged to meet with Dembo ( the youth leader and our co-ordinator), members of the school committee and Terema ( the head teacher ). Firstly, we went straight to the school to check on the work. For once in my life, I was lost for words - in the space of 5 weeks they had completed the first stage of the renovations. They had cleared the scrubland that surrounded the entire school building - which when we were there in November was about thigh high ! They then plastered every wall inside the building plus laid concrete floors in each of the five rooms. The whole of the outside of the building was rendered and a concrete veranda was created right across the front of the building. The 2 cubicle toilet block was made good inside and the outside was rendered.
By Gambian standards, for all of this to be achieved in five weeks, this was very fast work. The locals say that they operate on GMT - this does not mean Greenwich Meantime, it means Gambian Maybe Time!!
We retired to Dembo’s home where a meeting was held with Dembo, some committee members, the labourers foreman and myself.
The labourers were paid for their work and Dembo was given the money to complete the renovations on the school building - this included the purchase of four metal doors and two metal window shutters plus the paint and the painting of the inside and the outside of the entire building.
The total cost of all of the work carried out plus materials came to a little under £1700.
The next thing on the agenda was the name of the school - everyone agreed that it should now be called The Robert Kemp Memorial School. The school uniforms will be changed from blue and white check to the same green and white check of Firle school - in honour of both Robert Kemp and for the invaluable support that Firle residents have given to this cause.
Dembo was then given £200 to have 25 school benches and desks made plus a desk and a chair for the teacher.
The next stage of the project is to fence off the entire school grounds which measures approx. 100ms x 50ms plus have four signs made to direct people from the main highway to the school. I am awaiting the estimates for these.
There are now 52 children registered at the school and I have brought back the sponsor details of 43 of those children. The sponsorship will still be £15 a year. £3 will buy the child a school uniform, £3 will be the yearly school fees - as the school belongs to the community there is no rent to pay so the school fees have been set at £1 per term - the remainder of the sponsorship will be paid into a bank account and will be used to provide each child with breakfast and a hot meal at lunchtime.
Aswell as getting sponsors for the children, I suggested that it would be a good idea for Terema ( the head teacher ) to be sponsored to complete her teacher training at college. As it stands at the moment Terema is not only unwaged but she is also untrained.
The course is a 3 year course which costs £60 per term ( £180 per year or £540 for the whole course). At the end of the 3years Terema will receive the Early Childhood Development Studies Certificate. Not only will this course be beneficial to Terema but also to all of the children. If we can not find a sponsor for Terema we will pay her fees on a yearly basis from our fundraising.
Later on in our week we were fortunate enough to meet Steve and Siobhan Grindley from Chester. Steve is a professional photographer and just happened to ask me if I knew of any local schools where he could go to take some photos. My answer to that was “ I know of 2 schools and I would be delighted to take you to both of them”. This resulted in Steve taking nearly 1100 photos of both schools which will be put on disc and sent to me plus as an added bonus Steve is now building a website to promote our work in The Gambia. The photos are being given to us free of charge and the website will only cost approx. £50 which is the cost of the domain name and our host site. The building of the website is also free of charge.
As we are now going worldwide I will be applying to become a registered charity. The charity and website name will be The Gambia Reality. Our primary objective is to help nursery schools, as they are not government funded but we will not be adverse to helping any other genuine local project.
We did visit Yankuba Bojang Memorial Nursery School to give some children their letters and gifts from their sponsors.
The toilet block is still awaiting its roof. I have told Lamin, the head teacher, that until such time that the toilet block is completed to a satisfactory standard we will not be proceeding with the renovations of the school building but we will still continue to sponsor the children direct.
I met with some of the parents and was asked to convey their Thanks and gratitude to all of the sponsors for what we are doing for the children and their school.
I am taking in old mobile phones. It does not matter how old they are or whether they are in working order or not. In The Gambia they are sold to shops who repair them or use them as spares and then resell them. Anyone who has any old phones lurking in the depths of their cupboards rather than throw them away please consider passing them on to me.


If you have any questions or would like further information please contact
Suzy on 01273 858502.

Ps. Our website is now live. Please visit us at http://www.thegambiareality.com/