These photos were taken at Medina Angaleh school which is in Kiang district. Its a bit of a ride off the highway through the bush. It is a Fula community. A poor community. Water is a big problem there. Their borehole is broken and will take thousands of pounds to fix and the only other source of water they have is an open well. The water in this isn't really safe drinking water as a lot of different things can get into the water to pollute it. The teachers tell us that they and the children have a lot of stomach problems because of this. Their teachers accommodation needs serious renovation as you can see.We are hoping to take a big water filter there for the school which was given to another vso by a charity which sends them to different countries around the world. If they are able to use this then at least the school would have some access to clean drinking water.
Seedy and I went along because a teacher was coming from the link school,Woodlands Kent (anyone who is a primary teacher probably knows the website!) and also some teachers from other schools in Kent who had made link schools in different places in the Gambia.
They spent two days at the school, brought them resources, lots of jolly phonics stuff, sports equipments, pencils, books etc. They spent a morning showing the teachers some jolly phonics games and using the parachute that they had brought to play games with the children which they loved!
They were very well received by the community, the school cooked lots of food for them and had a ceremony with traditional singing and dancing to welcome them. Then before leaving they had a closing ceremony and I was asked to present Becky with the community's traditional cloth which is what you see in the photo above. We also played football with the children and teachers which in the heat was absolutely exhausting!
Woodlands had also raised some money which the school was going to use for fencing their garden to stop animals wrecking the crops they grow. They use the crops to supplement the feeding of the children. Some food is donated from the world feeding programme but most schools now have a garden to grow crops to supplement. The problem with the garden is the lack of water. The water has to be brought from the village to water the crops and that is time consuming and difficult for the children. The children from Woodlands had written letters to the Gambian children and the Gambian children wrote a letter back and the children from Woodlands had also written story books which they had had laminated for the children to use in the school.
