2015

Many of our students are now in further education, we are extremely proud them who have performed well and are continue to strive to reach their goals and achieve their ambitions.

Here are just two of them, Abdou Jammeh who has ambitions to be a doctor, and Lamin B Jammeh who is an electrician, and also a taxi driver as well.

Sikunda Community Hall and Skills Centre

Hadim is now working in the Skills Centre and he also has trained three very competent young girls who are also working there. While there recently I showed them some cloth table mats and ladies tops that I asked them to try and make, and sure enough they made a great job of them, I have brought some home to sell.

Village Library

Musa is in the Library three afternoons a week. He is very happy there and holds competitions for some of the students in the village in the back yard of the library and village hall. While we were there we emptied all the shelves of books and sorted them all out, there are a lot and at the moment have plenty for a while yet.

Womens Garden

This continues to flourish as it does every year since it started in 2006
This picture is showing one tiny corner of it, with its proud owner showing her produce.

Fonkoi Kunda Lower Basic School

We are in the process of building Teachers quarters for this school which is situated about 10km from Sikunda, and far from the south bank road. To reach it we go by motorbike, but the teachers unless they have a push bike have to walk from the nearest town Soma. This is a real hardship in the rainy season as the paths through the bush become waterlogged and very difficult to negotiate. This is the reason that we are now building teachers quarters. A lot of blocks have already been made as shown in the picture, and the footings are starting to be dug. We visited on 12th February to meet the headmaster, teachers and pupils. They gave us a tremendous welcome and are extremely pleased that at last they will have some resident teachers. It has been a huge problem in the past, so hopefully as from this next rainy season due to start in July the problem will be resolved. The director of education in the area has approved this building, and we continue to raise the funds to complete it within the next 3 months.

On this visit we purchased just over 450 exercise books to hopefully see them through to the end of the school year, we source them in The Gambia. They may need more, as it is very difficult for the parents in these areas to buy their children the books they need

Update December 31st 2015 – The Teachers homes are now completed for Fonkoi Kunda School! They took about 6 months to build, and Sankung has done a great job managing the work.  The headmaster and three of the teachers moved in at the beginning of the Autumn term. We had enough donations to provide them with beds, and then bedding was also donated which we gave on our visit in December. Further donations of footballs, exercise books, stationary and football shirts were also given to the school in December. They really need some help to supplement their school dinners, something we will perhaps be looking into in the new year. Further requirements include help with seedlings for the school garden.

Toniataba Lower Basic School

The electricity meter was installed and the electric connection is now up and running into the school. We have finished building the teachers toilets as this was their next main priority.

Badumeh Kuta Lower Basic School

The toilets were built last year, as this school was in desperate need of them at the time. The government has since built them the school so that in February this year they are moving out of the temporary classrooms and into the new school building. We are considering two options for improvement that have been requested.

Update Dec 31st 2015: With our donations we have been able to provide donkeys and donkey carts to take the younger children to school every day, some had 5km or more to walk each day, so obviously this has been a huge help to the familiesWe had an amazing greeting from the school staff, children and committees of the five villages that are within the schools catchment area. Stationary supplies and footballs were given on this visit, and we hope to build a wall in 2016 to separate the school from the road.