Newsletter

For those who have not received this by e mail.

Once again G.O.A.L for the Gambia has had a very successful year and this is due to the increased support we have received throughout the year.

Number of Young People being Sponsored:-

We have increased our sponsorship programme to 82 young people, an increase of 16 over last year. Some of the young people have finished their education programmes and since the beginning we have sponsored 98 students. New sponsors have been recruited during the year; bring the total to 42 students with direct sponsorship. We continue to look for new sponsors for those without direct support.

The Arabic School at Brikama:-

We have continued to support the rebuilding programme at the school. We have continued putting the finishing touches to the school block that we financed last year and all that remains is to plaster and paint the building. We have also constructed a toilet block consisting of 3 new toilets. Sandy recently visited the school to find that a second block had been financed and built by another charity. We are very disappointed that we were not consulted by the school or the charity involved so that we could work together to ensure that we could achieve the best possible results for the school. The new block has not been built in the same style as the initial block and it is felt that the money provided by the other charity could have been better used in conjunction with us to achieve more. The school now has 2 classroom blocks consisting of 8 classrooms, 2 offices and 2 rooms for use by staff and for storage of stationery items as well as the detached storeroom originally built at the start of our project there. This was what we had intended to achieve at the beginning. The staff and children are very happy with the school now and it is a huge improvement on what they had originally. We have decided that we will complete our original building but will no longer continue with the rebuilding programme as we feel that there are many more schools that could benefit from our support. However, we will continue to have links with the school and we will take interested visitors and provide the school with stationery items as we have pledged to do from the beginning.

The school has benefited from school stationary, balls, football kits and first aid supplies which have been donated by visitors to the school.

The Basori Nursery:-

We have continued to have a strong link with the nursery and the village of Basori. There have been many visitors during the tourist season, bring suitcases full of school equipment and toys for the children. We have ensured that all the new children who attend school have a uniform and we have also financed replacement uniforms when necessary.

We have also concentrated on the development of the teaching staff by arranging a one day First Aid Training course for 12 adults, all the teachers and support staff at the school attended. This course was organised by a charity that gave the school an equipped medical box and they visit every year to give refresher training and restock the medical box.

We have also enrolled one of the teachers on an Early Years Teacher Training course and purchased a bike for him to help with his transportation issues.

We will look to support the other teachers when they have the obtained the entry qualifications required for the course.

All the visitors to the Nursery and village are struck by the welcome they receive from the children and adults from the village, and for many it has made them want to become involved in fundraising. We have received over £700 for a toilet block to be constructed from 2 visitors to the school and that is now completed and in use! A very necessary addition to the school as the original toilets had been condemned and were no longer safe to use. The children were just going to the rear of school and relieving themselves on waste land which obviously was not dignified or hygienic. Another substantial donation was received which will be used to make blocks for a wall to be constructed around the school. This will keep the children safe from the new road that has been constructed close to the school as well as keeping roaming animals from the school land that were sleeping and defecating freely.

Sanyang Scouts:-

Over the past year we have continued to support Sanyang Scout Group. The charity has continued to financially support the Group in further developing their training programme. We have also helped with supplying uniforms for the young people when they join Scouts.

The Group Scout Leader, Janko, has worked extremely hard to develop scouting within The Gambia and his dedication was rewarded when he was one of two people selected to attend a 3 day International Conference in Tanzania?. Janko has also continued to train the Scout Band. Over the past year, many of the senior members of the band have moved onto the Army and are included within the Army Band. This is a credit to Janko’s professionalism, however he has struggled to find and train new members for the Scout Band.

5^th Sunbury Scout Group has also continued their link with the Sanyang Scouts and the Beaver Scouts still have a pen-pal link with the Sanyang Beavers.

Last November we had the sad news that one of the Beaver Scouts in Sanyang had died from Malaria, she was only 5 years old. On further investigation we found that most scout families in Sanyang did not have mosquito nets. 5^th Sunbury Scout Group undertook a ‘Penny Pot’ fundraising activity and we were able to supply the 120 mosquito nets before the rainy season started in June.

Pirang Basic Cycle School:-

We have a reading project at this school. Many of the books donated have been taken to this school to upgrade their school library and we decided to encourage reading by offering prizes to children on a termly basis. The students choose their own books and Sandy visits to listen to them read and discuss the books they have chosen. The school has created a reading club and once a term Sandy and three teachers judge the children on their reading skills, we look for fluency, pronunciation and understanding. It has proved very popular with the students and many more now want to join the group. We have limited numbers as it would make it to difficult to listen to everyone but there has been a definite uptake of students borrowing books from the library and we will invite new students to join the group annually. Every student in the group who participates in the competition days receives something for their efforts, school stationery usually and the winner from each year group receives something more substantial depending on what we have had donated. Last term the winners received school bags with school stationery inside, water bottles, reading diaries and a cash sum of 25 dalasis (about 50 pence) which they were delighted with. As Sandy was leaving the school she was inundated with requests for the school bags and students wanting to know how they could win one.

Visitors to The Gambia:-

Due to the positive feedback about the charity on the ‘Tripadvisor’ website, as well as our own website, Sandy has hosted 40 visits to the schools associated with the charity during the last tourist season. These trips have given people the opportunity to experience the ‘real’ Gambia, and at the same time, support the schools and children. On their return to the UK many people have kept in contact with the charity and they have continued to support us in our work. They often talk about having Gambia in their hearts. We take great pleasure in sharing this experience.

Sandy has also facilitated meetings between donors and their sponsored student which has been a real joy to see. Generally the donors are taken to the family compound where they met their students and their families to the delight of everyone. Often they are invited to share a meal with the family and gifts frequently exchanged.

Secondhand Items:-

Over the past year we have sent 6 shipments, over 1900 kilos in weight, of second-hand items and other equipment donated to the schools. Sandy has used the shop attached to her compound to sell these goods at a very low cost to local people and there is always a constant demand for all types of goods. Any profit raised, after the shipment costs have been paid, will go to the charity.

If you have any items you would like to donate, please contact me on 01932 562340

What next?

Our plans for the next financial year are to complete the school building in Brikama which is estimated to be around £1000 and to complete the wall surrounding the Nursery School in Basori which is estimated to be another £3000 We need to ensure that we have funds for uniforms for all the children at Basori and we need around 10 new benches to replace broken furniture in the nursery, the estimated cost for the benches is around £50 for all of them. A school uniform costs approximately £5.

We also need to recruit more sponsors for the children already in the programme and for the many that are on the waiting list. Sponsors for teachers salaries are also needed

There is a continuing need for school materials and it is hoped that our visitors will be as generous as they were last year so that we do not need to use charity funds to purchase pencils, pens, books, prizes, toys and games.

In the long term we are looking at possibly building another classroom in Basori to accommodate the increasing number of children wanting to attend the school.

There are many schools and projects that need our support and with the help of our supporters we have every faith we can achieve much more.

Charity Information:-

Website :- www.goal4gambia.org

Email:- goalforthegambia@hotmail.co.uk

Facebook:- www.facebook.com/pages/Goal-For-The-Gambia/181077235260338 We have our own page, if you have not already visited please do and click on the like button at the top of the page, you will then receive the newsfeeds to your page. This is the easiest place for Sandy to update information, post photos, videos etc.

We have introduced 2 new way to make it easier to donate money to the charity:-

Justgiving:- Donate online

http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/charity-web/charity/finalCharityHomepage.action?charityId=1002871

JustTextGiving:- Donate by text

Text JOIN ..... Amount of donation (i.e. JOIN£10) to 70070

Texts are free to send from all networks

Finally we would like to thank all our supporters, without you we could not do what we do. Please continue to support us and the children of The Gambia.

Sandy Sanyang & Paul Reynolds

Trustees

GOAL For The Gambia

Mosquito nets

I am very happy to report that every Scout family in Sanyang now has a large treated mosquito net. That is 125 families! Almost all of the donations have come from 5th Sunbury Scout Troop. Well done to everyone! Very important preventative measure, especially this time of the year. Most families sleep in the same bed so I would estimate at least 500 people are now sleeping safer at night!

Basori prizegiving

Many thanks to everyone who provided gifts for the prizes. Every child received a prize with those who did well in their exams get special prizes. It was a great day even if it was total chaos!! The children and their parents were so happy. Many parents turned up and it was lovely to see so many people there. Most of the nursery 3 children are leaving now to go to the primary school and many of them have been there since the beginning so it will be hard to say goodbye. Many speeches were made and I reproduce below a transcript of the Headteachers speech.

"Since the beginning of the academic year 2010/11 the schoo has registered a giant stride in acquiring a series of supplies from GOAL For The Gambia, a non profit making charitably organisation through our able philanthropist and Executive Director Khadijatou Sandy Sanyang. These supplies included school uniforms, exercise books, reading books, notebooks, pens, colouring pencils, erasers and sharpeners, footballs, tennis balls, boxes of chalks, toothpaste and brushes for hygiene, first aid box and even a First Aid training course during which eleven people across the underprivileged benefited i.e. the poor villages or community.

The organisation further provided the school, with teachers and paying salaries and also maintaining a cleaner by a salary. The same organisation sponsored a toilet facility worth over D25,000 (twenty five thousand dalasis) in January this year. It is currently making cement blocks for the preparation of erecting a wall around the school premises in order to protect the children and others from passing vehicles and uncontrolled animals.

In a related development, the management and staff wish to inform the general public that 25 pupils have graduated this year and are to transfer to the Lower Basic School come September 11th 2011.

On that note the school management, the school committee, members, parents of the pupils and the Mayor wish to commend Khadijatou Sandy Sanyang, her Gambian counterparts and GOAL For The Gambia for a job well done"

Thanks from me goes to everyone who is supporting us, we could not do it without you

Rainy Season in The Gambia

First, apologies for the delay in posting but had problems getting on to the blog site. Am no expert but managed it in a very round about way!

The rains are here now, first big rain was on Saturday, it seemed like the end of the world! The sky went black, massive winds whipped up the sand, dirt and rubbish and then the heavens opened. Thunder, lightening and torrential rain for a couple of hours. It was lovely when it stopped, everything was clean and bright and the next day all sorts of new insects were out and about, some nicer than others! My favourites are like small bright red spiders, they look all fluffy. We also had a swarm of flying insects, they suddenly appeared in their thousands, their wings dropped off after about 15 minutes and then they were like ants. the chickens had a great time eating them!

On to charity news here. We have had some nice donations and have started to make blocks for the fencing for Basori Nursery. Bless and his team are working very hard and I will visit this week. Hopefully they will have completed around half of the blocks needed and I will buy more sand and cement this week with the latest donations. Once we have made all the blocks we will get a price for constructing the wall. I would love to see it up this year but it all depends on the fundraising. Each block costs around 25p to make and we need approximately another 3000 blocks. If anyone would like to donate towards this project please contact us. We can accept cheques made payable to Gambia Fundraising Account, bank transfer or through Virgin Money Giving, just search for Goal For The Gambia.

I visited the Arabic School recently to take photos of the completed toilets and found that another charity is constructing one of the school buildings. I am very pleased for the school but am feeling disappointed that no one saw fit to consult with us. I am sure if we had joined forces we could have achieved a lot more. The building they are constructing is very different to our original plan. The main classroom block we have constructed still needs to be plastered and we plan to do that after we have completed the wall at Basori. We have decided though that as the Arabic School now has other support that we will complete the building we started and then look for another project where there is no other support available. We will still visit the Arabic School and take along any stationery and supplies that is donated.

If anyone has any thoughts on this decision we would be happy to hear them.

Schools will be closing in the next couple of weeks for the summer break and all the students are taking exams at the moment. A stressful time for them all but they will have about 10 weeks to recover before school starts again!

End of the tourist season! Big thanks to everyone!

Well, the end of another tourist season and what a season it has been. We have had many visitors to our projects, sponsors visiting their sponsored students, work progressing on our projects, it has been a very busy 6 months. Thank you so much to everyone who has taken time out of their holidays and spent a day with us. Thank you also for all your lovely donations for the schools and the clinic in Basori. It certainly makes a big difference to the charity as anything donated means we do not have to buy it from charity funds. We have also had some very generous cash donations and fundraising going on when visitors have returned to the UK.

Basori Nursery has been a very popular choice of schools to visit and Basori village has welcomed us each time with open arms. They certainly know how to welcome visitors. I have never organised any of the welcome parties, the village have organised it all themselves and seem to enjoy as much as the visitors and I do. We go later in the morning so as not to disrupt the school too much, the children get more than 3 hours of teaching before we arrive. We have built the new toilets at the school this year thanks to some generous donors and our next project is to fence the school. This is a huge project as the area is 60 meters by 100 meters and we want to build in concrete blocks as this will be long lasting. A rough estimation of the cost is in the region of £7000. Definitely needed though to prevent the animals coming in to the school grounds and leaving their mark all over the place as well as preventing the children "escaping" during the morning and crossing the main road very close to the school.

We are really looking forward to the prize giving day in July as I have been saving some of the "goodies" that have been donated by visitors and every child will receive a small gift with those that have done well getting the star prizes!

News on the Arabic School to follow shortly, watch this space!

Independence Day

It has been a busy time here the last few weeks. We have seen quite a few visitors and taken them to the schools as well as organising materials for the school toilets. Thank you to everyone who has bought along donations for the schools as well as the cash donations, all the money is being put to good use and I am now almost an expert on local toilets and what prices to pay for materials!

On Saturday the nursery schools in this region celebrated the 46th anniversary of Independence and I was asked to accompany the nursery school in Basori. What a day!! 96 nursery schools were represented with 30 children from each school with their teachers were invited to "march past". I was included in this and it was great fun. They had nursery school age children representing local dignatories, members of the government and even the President who arrived in a cavalcade of vehicles with horns blowing, lights flashing and "security" running along side. The children all looked wonderful in their freshly cleaned uniforms and many of the girls had their hair plaited for the day, some even had their hair decorated with sweets, very colourful and noisy!

One of the highlights of the day for me was that the Sanyang Scouts, who we also support, were invited and they gave a demonstration of their marching skills which was fantastic. These children were age between 5 and 8 and honestly could have put the army to shame. They were perfectly in time, changing pace, turning and all to the real Army band. I was so proud of them. I will upload some photos soon to the Facebook page.

In the afternoon they had sports where there was some fierce competition. The children all did so well, they arrived at 10 am or before and it did not finish until 7. Brilliant day and again showed me just how proud these children and their families are that they are receiving an education.

Toilets, mosquito nets and busy times1

Work has begun in earnest on the toilets and Basori, slightly delayed as previously mentioned. They are working on it around three times a week as the men are digging the soak away voluntarily and it is very hard work!

The Arabic School staff have also dug their own soak away and as soon as funds allow we will be buying cement and sand and start the block making. I am very happy that they have all done this work themselves, they really do believe here that if we all join hands things will get done. No sitting around waiting for money to fall from the skies!

Not sure if I should have another blog for this but as I have mentioned it before...... The scouts in Sunbury have started collecting money for the Scouts in Sanyang after the death of one of the young girl scouts from malaria. We aim to buy every scout family a mosquito net and so far have enough money to buy and distribute 30, we would love to supply every scout family, they cost around £5 each for the big ones. Please sponsor a mosquito net and help protect our young scouts.

Building work starts on the toilets at Basori and Brikama

Visited both schools last week and the work has started in earnest in Basori. Work was delayed as the man who is organising it sadly lost his 22 year old son so work was delayed to allow a respectable time for mourning. I think the hardest part will be digging the soak away, they had dug maybe a metre last week and it needs to be at least 3 metres deep and the soil gets harder the further you dig. They have the funds now to buy the cement, sand and materials and I am hoping that we will now be able to have proper doors fitted rather than corrugate ones.

I was very happy to be there for the opening of the well that the villagers have dug for themselves at the school. They realised that they could not rely on the charity to do everything and so set to themselves. We provided a small amount of money for some of the materials but really can not take any credit for this. See our Facebook page for photos of the well and the starting of work on the toilets. Will keep posting new photos when I visit.

The Arabic School in Brikama is also in desperate need of toilet facilities and I was surprised and delighted when I visited to see that the have dug the soak away themselves. The staff all helped out and it obviously will reduce costs. Once the toilet is finished in Basori and I can be sure we have enough money I will start to buy sand and cement to make blocks for this school. Obviously, any donations gratefully received!

Facebook

We now have a community page on Facebook and will be posting regular updates and photos on there, please "like" us to receive notifications of updates. GOAL For The Gambia - Facebook.

Thank you

Visits to schools

We are happy to take visitors along to any of the schools we are working with and although it is not expected any school supplies they bring with them they can have the pleasure of seeing the real difference even the simplest gift can make to these schools. None of our schools are in the tourist areas and the only visitors they have are the ones that we take along. You will be welcomed with open arms wherever you decide to go. We do not charge for these visits but would ask you to pay fuel costs and a tip for the driver as we are taking him away from potential work for the day. We can also provide you with lunch in a local compound, Gambian style. A treat not to be missed.

Since the New Year we have had three sets of visitors to schools and every one of them has said they have had a memorable day and really enjoyed the visits. Please read the comments on our guest book and contact us if you would like to spend a day with us.

New Year, New goals!

Happy New Year to everyone. I was very lucky to be able to spend Christmas and the New Year with my family in London. I am back in The Gambia now and have been for a week, a very busy week! I have taken two sets of visitors to visit schools on different days, attended First Aid Training in Basori, a day paying school fees, as well as trying to sort stuff out in the house and the charity. Not complaining though, I love it!

What are our plans for 2011? Well, the first target was to build a toilet at the nursery in Basori but thanks to some very generous donations over Christmas that is now in the process of being built. Thank you people, you know who you are! There me an amount left over, that's the optimist in me, and I plan to use that to start on toilets for the Arabic School. They also do not have any facilities and have even started digging their own soak-away to reduce the costs to the charity. After that there is the first building in Brikama that needs a little finishing off, we would like to dig a well there and have asked for costings, after that we will concentrate on the big fund-raising for the other two classroom blocks.

In Basori once the toilet block is built we would like to consider a fence to enclose the school to prevent children from coming out of school and ending up on the main road. It will also serve as a security measure even though there is little crime in the village. This will be quite expensive but we are looking at ways to reduce the costs.

We would also like to increase the teachers salaries, at present they are paid a very small amount and it would be nice to give them a fair reward every moth for their hard work, commitment and loyalty. When funds allow we would also like one of them to undertake further training to become fully qualified teachers.

I am really enjoying meeting the lovely visitors who contact me when they are coming to The Gambia and taking them to visit our schools and projects, I hope this year will see many more new friends of the charity as well as old friends visiting again.

So many things to do but I am sure we will continue to raise funds and allow us to develop the charity.