Successful return - after two years!

I have just returned from a brief, successful, trip to the Gambia - following a two year absence, for COVID-related reasons - and feel there are good stories to tell about the schools in Sohm and beyond.

I'll concentrate on Sohm in this post, and deal with our Rotary-supported project in Sukuta, of which I've written much over the last year or so, in a blog in a couple of weeks.

Senior management team, with Rotary and Beech Hill logos

Firstly, although the Sohm schools were closed for nine months, because of the local COVID lockdown, there seemed to have been few - if any - serious cases of the virus in the village. The Lower Basic (primary) school's staff, however, were very greatful for the supplies of masks and sanitiser that we were able to get to the school, via our good friends at the Scottish charity First Aid for Gambia.

 

Pupils and staff with SSS-supplied anti-COVID sanitisers and masks

 

Before I left the UK, the pupils at Beech Hill in Luton, with which Sohm LBS is twinned, produced some lovely artwork and letters for me to take to Sohm. The Gambian youngsters were delighted, and below are some photos of some proudly displaying their incoming correspondence.

Some of the Beech Hill letters to Sohm

and more ....

and more ....

and more!

The Sohm children have responded in kind, and within two days turned around a similarly impressive set of letters and art work, which we will share with Beech Hill, when they have their annual "Gambia Day", in April.

There has been plenty of work taking place on the ground in the Sohm LBS, to which we have contributed 50% of the cost, over the last two years. A six-classroom block, which was partially damaged by a hurricane two years ago, has now been completely restored and renovated.  It is looking good, as the photos below show.

A local craftworker was also commissioned to repair over 100 pieces of broken school furniture, at an average cost of £8 per item, and with the chairs we supplied two years ago, the school is now well stocked with necessary furniture.

And nursery children - note reconditioned, shiny furniture!

 

 

 

This means that in the ten years of our involvement with Sohm LBS, we have restored and upgraded every building in the 500-pupil school - and the place is looking very smart.

We are delighted to report that our previous, large, building project - the new school hall - is now being well used. Its kitchen, which was part of the construction, is a busy source of nuitritional cooking, much of the food for which has been produced in the school's garden.

 

 

New school kitchen - pots bubbling away with veg grown in the school's garden

As we do every year, we made a donation of almost £1k of stationery to the school. This meets the whole requirements for the 500 children and staff there for the year. So, there are exercise books, pens, pencils, crayons for the pupils and flip charts, marker pens, chalks and record books, duplicating paper, printer inks etc. for the staff.

Below is a photo of some pupils displaying some of this donation. We have had a long relationship with a local stationer - Prime Stationers -  in The Gambia, who has always given us extremenly competitive rates for our purchases. This year he made a significant personal contribution, to top up our donation. So, we were delighted to have some of the pupils wave some of his advertisng material, by way of thanks. Enlarged copies of some of these photos now adorn his shop, with the strapline "Delighted to support the education of local children" Win:win, here! 

Annual stationery donation, assisted by our friends from Prime Stationers

 One other donation to our charity must be recorded. One of our dearest supporters, concious that donations of clothing to developing countries rarely include underwear, was determined to redress the issue and purchased a large quanity of bras, knickers and underpants for what turned out to be a hugely grateful bunch of local recipients (modesty prevents us showing them in action!). It really was a bit of a struggle to get everything out there, and within airplane luggage restrictions - but we are glad we managed it! Delighted as we are to have assisted this very thoughtful donation, we are not opening up a clothes donation facility for the future! In previous years we have had access to free container space. Unfortunately, we no longer do.

Our ten-year involvement with the school has had a remarkable impact on its educational performance.  All schools in The Gambia are given an annual Scorecard, by the country's version of Ofsted.  Below is Sohm's most recent score card.  It has - quite simply - been turned from a run of the mill, rural, back water school, to the exemplar primary school in its district and top of cluster groups and other measurement devices.

Impressive Lower Basic school "Scorecard"

The senior school in the village of Sohm has been badly run for the last four years, and we have refused to work with a head whom we did not trust. He has now been replaced and the school is in the temporary charge of two long-serving deputies, with whom we have always had a very good relationship - Nicholas Mendy and Mama Gomez - see pictured below. We look forward to re-engagement with the school, staff and pupils.

New interim management at secondary school, Mama and Nicholas - back in safe hands

The senior school has good facilities, many of which we, and our partners from the Jersey Gambia Schools Trust, have contributed to, over the years.

We are very pleased to say that the Education Regional Director, now he has replaced the former head, is determined to turn the senior school into a district school of excellence in science and technology (because it has good facilities, and a well educated intake).

The two schools in Sohm do, however, have teacher recruitment and retention difficulties; because they are in a relatively remote area, and the accommodation available to staff is poor. We are currently working with the Regional Director on submitting a bid to a significant Dutch charity, to create new teacher accommodation for upto 40 staff, in the village, in unused land and premises already owned by the ministry.

  

Potential location for new teaching accommodation - we're in talks!

We'll let you know how we get on!

School year ends in Sohm

Much of our attention this year has been spent in driving forward, with Rotary, the Sukuta school renovation project - about which more, later. 

But we haven't forgotten our friends in Sohm, the first school with which we worked in The Gambia. Although, for COVID reasons, we were unable to visit the country this year, we have been able to make an impact, as a result of the generous donations we have received from our supporters and sponsors.

What follows is a brief summary of some of our impacts over the last twelve months. 

We have assisted the school in getting anti-COVID supplies to it, including hand gels and a range of face masks and shields, as the photos below illustrate:

We supplied the staff with a new laptop computer, on which they have been able to keep the school's COVID records. Thankfully, there have been no incidents at the school.

We have maintained our annual stationery order to the school, whereby we are able to provide all materials the pupils and staff need for the whole academic year.

We introduced electricity to the school about five years ago, and gave a commitment that we would pay the running costs(fortunately no heating bills to incur!). Here is a receipt, for about £9, for the quarterly charges, we have been happy to support.

Regular readers will know that our biggest project in Sohm, to date, has been the construction of a large, multi-purpose, assembly hall last year. We are delighted to report that it continues to be well used, both by the school and the local community. Below are photos of one of the regular assemblies and, excitingly for us, pictures from an inter-school debating contest the school was able to host in the hall, recently.

The hall is the main community assembly room in the village of Sohm, and is used for a range of local events, such as the women's assembly shown below. We have encouraged the school to adopt a charging policy for these lettings and have offered to match fund the income they receive from the lettings, to supply enhancements to the hall and school. 

As a result, we have been able to purchase an additional 100 chairs for the school, a PA system (which many of those letting the building have asked for) and some much needed ceiling fans for the hall. This great partnership working has improved facilities in the school and strengthened community relationships and ownership of the hall.

From the UK, we have maintained our relationship with fellow British charity First Aid 4 Gambia and have ensured that there has been further first aid training and supplies given to the school. Many thanks to our Scottish friends for this. In the spirit of improving first aid facilities, we have also upgraded the beds in the sick room, which we restored a few years ago.

So, it's been a difficult year, because of COVID, but we feel that - even at a distance - we have been able to continue our support to the Lower Basic school in Sohm, thanks to the continued generosity of our family, friends and supporters. On behalf of the children in Sohm, we would like to say a very large Thank You to you all! 

Meanwhile, our major pre-occupation this year has been progressing the Sukuta project, which, with great Rotary assistance, we are attempting to oversee a major renovation of the Sukuta Lower Basic school. It has over 2,000 children and is the country's largest primary. 

There has been a slight delay in progressing this, as the Rotary annual budget for supporting projects such as ours was exhausted earlier than expected this year. However, the new Rotary year began on 1 July and we were encouraged to make a grant application for this new year. Which we have done! 

Without wishing to sound too confident, we look forward to being able to announce significant progress with the project within a month or two. 

Thank you for reading. Your continued support is important to us, and is vital to Gambian youngsters.

Schools' back for winter

Schools in the Gambia returned 10 days ago after a lock-down in the country endured since March. And we, and they, have been very busy since!

First, a bit of bad news - but don't give up, the rest of the newsletter is very positive!

Summer in The Gambia is the rainy season, with torrential rainfall, often lasting many days. So, not surpringly, there are not many tourists (even in a good year) from May till September. This year's season was particularly savage, and it found a victim in the Sohm Lower Basic school. The sick room which many of you generously contributed towards refurbishing three years ago, had its roof blown off one night, and rendered unusable.  Everything in it was destroyed - and the photo below shows why.

 

Storm damage to sick room

We are seeking quotes not just for its refurbishment, but for that of the whole block in which it sits. All being well, we and our partners from Jersey are hoping to find funding for it, so that we can refurb the whole block next summer.

In the meantime, we will be using the deputy head's office (sorry Mamodou!) as an interim measure and we bought a new bed for the room last week - see photo.

Our friends from First Aid 4 Gambia (FA4G) have been good enough to replace the wrecked first aid supplies. So, bad as the storm damage was, we have been able to salvage a temporay solution and hopefully a longer term benefit from the wreckage.

 

New bed in its temporary home 

- the deputy head's former office!

As we said in our last newsletter in September, The Gambia has been relatively lightly hit by COVID (nationally, only 120 registered COVID-related deaths in total over the 8 months). The country has been very strict on preventative measures - schools closed, full lockdowns, night-time curfews etc. The government, nervously, sanctioned the return of schools after what was both the English and  Gambian half term, last week.

Social distancing is strictly adhered to in the country, and is maintained as the children have returned to school - see below. 

 

Pupils observing social distancing on return from lockdown

 

  

Staff observing social distancing on return from lockdown

Our good friends from First Aid 4 Gambia were able to get a consignment of hand sanitiser and visors to the country, and we were able to purchase a small quanity, at cost, for use in the school. Thanks to an anonymous donor for funding this and to FA4G for letting us have the supplies.

 

Pupils modelling visors, masks and hand sanitiser,

 supplied by our friends at First Aid 4 Gambia

 

  

Head and deputy head wearing FA4G-supplied visors

Meanwhile, the Scottish-based FA4G are trialling a new training course, and such is our close relationship with them that they chose Sohm Lower Basic to launch it on Monday.The photos we have been sent are very gratifying. You will note that it took place in the shiny new hall we opened in January, with the chairs that so many of you funded, stacked and moved out of the way for the course!

 

Trainer demonstrating CPR on the course

 

 

Staff practising CPR on the course

 

 

 

Never too young to learn - one of the teachers 

takes her youngster with her to the course! 

The school staff are delighted, all passed the course and they remain the most medically-qualified people in the village!

 

Certificate awarded for passing course

 

 All sixteen attendees displaying thier certificates of First Aid competence

 Huge project on the horizon

Lamin Saidy, the former deputy-head of Sohm Lower Basic school, with whom we have worked so closely to deliver so much at the school was, unsurprisingly, promoted last summer to become deputy head at Sukuta Lower Basic school. This is the largest primary school in the country - with 2,000 pupils. 

Following 40- years of neglect at the school, during most of which time the former president had some difficulty in distinguishing between his back-pocket and the schools' refurbishment budget, precsiely the same issues have emerged at the school as we found when we first got involved with Sohm. He found: a poor water supply, insanitary toilets, lack of a serviceable hall, no first aid room etc.

He, I and the building contractor we used in Sohm put together a detailed spec and estimate for carrying out the necessary work. I was on the point of returning to The Gambia in the first week of April on a fact-finding mission with some key Rotary International officials. 

We had lined up meetings with the permanent secretary at the ministry of education, the regional education director, three Gambian rotary clubs, trips to the schools (Sukuta and Sohm - the latter to see what we had done, at a similar price), with a view to applying for a large Rotary International grant.

The COVID lockdown intervened, just a week before we were due to fly out. The initiative was put on the back burner. It is now being revived and strengthened by the fact that my local Rotary club in London (Redbridge) has twinned with a club in Slovenia, who wish to be involved. So, we are gradually knitting together a truly international team which, hopefully, can do in a year for a school five times larger than Sohm, what it has taken us five years to achieve in Sohm. Watch this space for updates!

Wish us well!  Beware - a begging bowl may come out soon, to help fund the project!

We hope this newsletter finds you as well as it leaves us, as this dreadful pandemic drags on without apparent end in sight.

Sohm schools and COVID

It's September and the schools are returning in England, rather gingerly.  So, what, we are often asked, is happening in Sohm?

Like the UK, The Gambia went into lockdown in March, and all schools were closed - but they have yet to open again.

The pandemic seems to have hit the country less badly than most others. Until about a month ago there had only been two recorded deaths, nation-wide and the infection rate seemed to be low.

The government publishes a simple daily summary of the situation with regard to COVID, like today's - below. It is easy to see what is happening, at-a-glance, and we have heard no suggestion from anybody that the government is lying, or making claims and promises it can't keep.

 

 

The Gambian government's simple daily message on COVID - not "World Beating", not "Moonshoting", but simple, honest and clear

A little over a month ago, there was a sudden surge of deaths and the total number shot up rather rapidly, from two to the seventies.  The government responded by extending the lockdown and introducing a dusk til dawn curfew. The death rate began to drop quite dramatically and there have only been two deaths in the last week.

Which is great news!  Because the medical infrastructure in the country is fragile  and it could not cope with a large infection rate.

To put the total Gambian death figure into context, we live in a London borough with one sixth the population of the whole of The Gambia, but we have experienced over three times the total number of deaths - suggesting that things in London have been 18 times worse than The Gambian's situation.

Which brings us back to The Gambian schools. They should be on the point of re-opening, but they will not be doing so.  The government is working on a number of options - one is to open schools six days a week, for extended days, with all pupils attending on alternate days.  There are a number of problems, of course - not the least the impact this would have on the teachers. 

Gambian TV and radio have been used as teaching substitutes over the last six months, but few families - particularly in Sohm have TVs. And, obviously it would be counter-productive if people without TVs crammed into the houses of people with them. The education situation is far from ideal.

When we visited the country, pre-lock-down, in January we took a gift from the wonderfully supportive Redbridge Rotary Club. A fellow Rotarian, from Australia, had developed/invented a simple device called a Spa-Tap, as an aid to personal hygiene. Redbridge Rotary purchased a number of these and we took 30 to The Gambia with us.

 

A Spa Tap device

it's a simple tough plastic valve that can be attached to a 2-litre water bottle, filled with tap water. Easily-applied pressure opens and closes the valve to allow water to flow, which can be used for hand washing and even showers. 

We took them to two schools, so that the bottles could be filled from stand-pumps  and students, on a "monitor" basis, could take them to the toilets - where there is no running water, to enable users to wash their hands after visting the facility.

 

Collecting empty bottles for Spa taps

Little did we know that hand-washing would attract so much attention and exhaltation just a month later, when COVID first entered our conciousness.

 

The regional director of education, headmaster and his deputy and a local Iman giving their backing to the Spa Tap

We hope the Redbrige-Rotary funded 30 taps have done their bit to keep COVID at bay in Sohm! 

 

And the kids get a look in too - including two rather large ones from the UK! 

And finally - the good news!

 

One piece of very good news on the health front concerns Robin Mallet, founder, with his wife Carol, of our Jersey-based partners in The Gambia - The Jersey Gambia Schools Trust. Last November he was diagnosed with tounge and throat cancer. Now - after nine months of surgery and intensive treatment - he has been declared cancer-free. He can't wait to get his sleeves rolled up and to be back in action on bealf of the children of Sohm.  Well done, Robin!