There are almost daily reports in the UK press about how charities have suffered financially during the COVID pandemic, as funds have dried up and donors cut back. SSS, in its own small way, has been no different. School lockdowns have meant we have lost our largest single source of income this year, the fund-raising efforts of the ever-generous Beech Hill school in Luton. Some of our biggest backers have either cut back or diverted their funds to perhaps more pressing problems during the year.
But, to the rescue has come Rotary International!
Rotary - inspirers and principal funders of the Sukuta project
The Rotary Club of Redbridge has been a regular supporter of SSS over the last four or five years, and clearly liked what they have seen in terms of feedback and the evidence of generous donations being put to good and effective use.
John of SSS became a member about eighteen months ago and the club has encouraged us to spread our wings within the Rotary family in seeking support for our efforts with Gambian education.
As mentioned in the previous two posts, we have addressed most of the major infrastructure challenges that required fixing at the Sohm primary school (electrifying the school, upgrading the staff quarters, renovating the toilets, regenerating the school’s library, increasing the water supply and access, revamping a sick room, refurbishing a six-classroom block and finally building a brand new multi-purpose hall).
Our key contact at Sohm, deputy head, Lamin Saidy had been transferred to a similar post in the country’s largest primary school, in Sukuta – essentially a suburb of the country’s biggest urban sprawl, Serekunda – where he found similar problems of infrastructure neglect.
Lamin Saidy - Sukuta's deputy head - acknowledging the role Rotary played in helping to transform Sohm Lower Basic School
Together, and with the encouragement of the school’s leadership, staff, PTA governors and local education director, we put together an ambitious nine-point plan, spelled out in the previous post:
· Double water tank capacity
· Greatly increase the number of water supply standpipes
· Renovate unhealthy toilets
· Build the school’s first sick room
· Bring the dilapidated library back into use
· Build a covered area for food suppliers
· Increase the size of the school’s computer room
· Restore the out-of-bounds school hall, and
· Create the school’s first staff room
Rotary International is a huge organisation, dedicated to charity, with clubs in almost all countries world-wide. Each club is semi-autonomous in terms of fund-raising activity and charity giving; but the collective efforts of Rotary have been amazing.
We have constructed a complex structure of mainly Rotary-based funding arrangements that will finance most of the £60,000 required to pay for the Sukuta project, transforming The Gambia’s largest primary school into one that is fit-for-purpose in facing the challenges of the 2020s.
The PTA meets and enthusiatically endorses all elements of the Sukuta renovation project - including the proposal to restore the old school hall (as yet unfunded) - so that their future meetings can be held inside!
Sohm School Support is contributing £10,000 to the funding of the Sukuta project. Redbridge Rotary is adding a further £5,000. The London District of Rotary is contributing $10,000 (US). Redbrige has a neighbouring club, Barkingside which is generously contributing to the project and it is twinned with clubs in Holland and Slovenia who are also adding upto 1,000 Euros each. Based on this network of support, we currently have a grant application to Rotary International for a global grant of a further $10,000.
In order to be eligible for the Global Grant we have had to enlist local (to The Gambia) support. So, the Gambian Ministry of Basic and Secondary Education (MoBSE) is contributing the reconstruction of the school toilets as its contribution (see photo). And the Rotary Club of Brusubi (about 10 miles from Sukuta school) will becoming the local managing agents for the project.
New toilets are under construction - the Gambian government's contribution to the Sukuta renovation project
If we are successful with our Global Grant application, we hope to begin the major renovation project as the school breaks up for the summer holidays, so the bulk of the most disruptive work can be undertaken when the children are not present. We anticipate everything being finished within one school year.
We are confident of the plans, because, as explained previously, we will be getting the band back together for construction purposes. It will be the same people – school deputy head, Lamin and contractor, Future in Our Hands – who have worked so successfully in Sohm with us over the years, who will be delivering in Sukuta, overseen and prompted by the support and attention of the local Rotary club.
Offices of Future in Our Hands - the not-for-profit building contractors who will undertake the construction work
So, the old team – ex-Sohmites – will deliver on a project overwhelmingly funded by the new team – Rotary International. The Rotary contribution is quite incredible, involving the generosity of clubs from four nations (England, the Gambia, Slovenia and Holland), together with the transglobal Rotary International, in oreder to transform the educational prospects for children in one of Africa's poorest countries.
We hope to have full funding in place to start the project in July so that seven of the nine sub-projects can be delivered over the following twelve months. The final two (italicized in the list above: school hall and staff room), however, are currently unfunded.
It is our aim to raise the £12,000 required for these two elements within the next year, so that the entire nine-aspect renovation project can be completed within one calendar year of having the construction workers on site.
Your support would, as ever, be most welcome.
Next edition in two weeks: Not forgetting Sohm!
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