In January 2011 Andy and I had the great fortune of visiting the
Mansa Colley Bojang nursery school in the village of Jalanbang near, Brikama, in the West African country of The Gambia. We turned up with a big bag of clothes and school items kindly donated by village friends. It was a special experience for us, which couldn’t have been achieved if not for the amazing generosity or our mates. (
click here for photos).
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| Using hand made bricks at the school |
We have now become great friends with Muktaar Bojang, "Mucki"for short, founder of the Mansa Colley Bojang school and co founder of
Sponsor a Gambian Child . Mucki is an impressive chap, who started out in life as a tour guide. One of his trips would be to take tourists to see the remote and ‘typical’ African village of Jalambang. Mucki developed a strong bond with the village and wanted to do what he could to improve their lives. They very much needed a school as the nearest one was 3 miles away in the city of Brikama - an impossible journey for young children to do on foot every day.
The village people had all the skills to do the building work themselves, even making the bricks, but they needed funds for the actual materials. Mucki made it his mission to raise the money they needed. When we visited in 2011 they had managed to build two classrooms, two toilets and a well. Now through their own dedicated hard work and sponsorship they have built 3 classrooms, installed a clean water pump system, have a produce garden and 4 student teachers sponsored through the charity
Sponsor A Gambian Teacher.
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| Learning by rote |
However, the school of 215 children still don’t have a single text book. Most of the learning is done by teaching by rote from the blackboard. To be able to follow the official Gambian school curriculum they need the appropriate text books for the Junior level children. Andy and I are going out to The Gambia on the 25th November. This year we would love to be able give the school the books they need. The charity
Sponsor a Gambian Teacher have kindly offered to co ordinate our mission by providing the desperately needed teaching resources if we can raise enough money.
Our first priority is to provide text books for the 100 junior level children. There are 3 set books in the curriculum for Maths, English and Integrated Studies. Each book cost approximately £2.00. If the children shared the books, 1 between 2, we would only need to provide 50 of each which would come to
£300. In addition to this we would like to raise another
£300 for Sponsor a Gambian teacher to spend on other teaching resources for the remaining 115 children in the Infant school. If you would like to donate we would be most grateful. please visit our
Virgin Money Giving site here.
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| The books that the school children require |
In addition to raising money for text books we plan to take out some supplies with us. The teachers, villagers and pupils are much in need of
pencils, crayons, pencil sharpeners, rubbers, toothpaste, toothbrushes, tennis balls, deflated footballs, soap, candles, skipping ropes and wind-up torches. Thomas Cook are giving us 20kg of free luggage space, so we've got a big bag to fill and are asking for help from our neighbours and friends.
Click here for more information on a coffee morning we are holding.
Thank you very much for your support. It is much appreciated.
