Sohm Schools Support

May 2013 Newsletter - Number 5

This is the third, and last, of our newsletter updates, letting you know of the progress we made on your behalf, and with your money (!), when we were in The Gambia, earlier in the year. We hope you are as encouraged as we are with progress and the value for money we have achieved for your hard earned donations.

You can get details of our earlier newsletters on our website - for details, see end of this letter.

School trip for the Lower Basic school

Sohm is quite a remote community, with only bicycles and a once a day bush taxi as a means of exploration beyond its boundaries. Many of the village's children haven't even managed this, by the time they leave the Lower Basic school.

We have worked on a scheme with the school to provide a day school trip for all of the year 5 and year 6 pupils (about 180 in all). The day out will provide a packed lunch and visit to three of the following: Banjul, the country's capital city, the beach and Atlantic Ocean, the country's only commercial airport, its zoo and the Wassu Stones - Gambia's mysterious Stonehenge-like monument on the north bank of the country.

The Wassu Stones - a key historic site in the Gambia - its very own mini-Stonehenge

We are delighted to say that Owen Walker has agreed to sponsor this trip this year. Owen has recently moved to New York and has said how important travel was in expanding his horizons and perspectives, as he was growing up. His wish is that some of these benefits may rub off on the Sohm youngsters. Thanks, Owen!!

Distribution of donated laptops

There is no mains electricity in Sohm's two schools, no internet access, almost no computers and little ICT competence; but the schools struggle valiantly to not get left further behind in a rapidly developing wired world.

Laptops, with good batteries for power storage, provide a much appreciated boost to those efforts. Dennis Roberts was kind enough to donate 3 laptops to us last autumn and Rose Phillips, another. As a result of free transport, donated by our friends at Football Gambia, we were able to get these out to Sohm in February this year. And what a difference they have made!

ICT lessons can now be conducted, whether the generator is on, or not, via the storage capacity of the batteries - which can be charged elsewhere in the village. Additionally, each of the two school heads now has a PC for school record keeping and keeping in touch with us, and others!

We were able to supplement these very generous donations with some ICT teaching books and some memory sticks, to the benefit of staff and students at the schools, alike.

We have been promised more free transport capacity to The Gambia, this autumn. So, if you or colleagues are disposing of laptops (with good batteries), as you upgrade or migrate to tablets - get in touch! We'll be delighted to pick them up from you and can guarantee they will make a difference to young African lives!

Communications updates

We were delighted to get six very positive pieces of news coverage for the charity in the Gambian press, while in the country, earlier this year...check out our In The News page. In addition, we have had coverage for our efforts in the Ealing Gazette and Ealing Council magazine. While in The Gambia we caught up with Ian Wiggins, a freelance video/film maker who agreed to make a short video about Sohm Schools Support, free of charge for us. We have posted this on our website, along with the press coverage, to update supporters and casual visitors on the charity's progress. So a big thanks to Wiggy! You can contact him via earwiggy@sky.com

Coverage from Gambian newspaper, The Point, 7 March 2013

You can find about all of this press coverage, and more, on our In the News page

Keep in touch

We have a presence on Facebook (SohmSchoolsSupport), Twitter (@GambiaSchools) and a website (www.sohmschoolssupport.org.uk), and can be contacted via e.mail at info@sohmschoolssupport.org.uk.

Keep in touch and find out how we are getting on, and spending our income!

That's enough from us, for now. Until the next time,

John and Sandra Walker
(Trustees, Sohm Schools Support)

Welcome to our re-launched website!

It may look the same to you, but we've migrated to Blogger, for the administration of the site.

Confused? Basically our wonderful web designer (see below) has moved all of our, revised, web content over to a new system which will mean that we can be much more hands on about running it, in future. We will update it regularly with news and views about Sohm.

The site now has lots of interactivity possibilities. So you can comment, offer suggestions whenever you want, almost anywhere on the site. The only proviso is that it has to be "moderated" first, which means we have the right to reject it, if we don't feel it is appropriate. We will only use this option to omit abuse, spam or frankly racist, sexist or homophobic material (which we don't expect to receive).

Coming up, soon, we'll be posting a video that out good friend Ian Wiggins shot for us, earlier this year, when he was in Sohm, with us. So, that's something to look forward to.

Summer Fair

We are happy to announce, too, that Derwentwater School, in Acton, which is twinned with the Lower Basic schools, is letting us run a stall at their Summer Fair on 5 July, as we did last year. There will be a table top stall, raffle and the chance to sit on the back of a Harley Davidson, with Bill Carson, kindly providing the equipment, as last year.

Sandra with Gibril, the head and Lamin, deputy head
of Sohm Lower basic school, in front of sign at school illustrating
twinning with Derwentwater Primary, in Acton

Bill and Natalie Carson, at last year's Derwentwater School Summer Fair

So, hope you enjoy the new-look website, and looking forward to getting your comments and feedback!

A word of thanks

We don't like to blow our own trumpets (well, not too much!), but we thought we'd share with you a recent e.mail of appreciation we received from Gibril Bojan, head teacher of the Sohm Lower Basic School, following our recent trip there. We'll blush while you read it, but see what a difference the generous help we get makes!

Hi Great friends & Derwentwater primary school,

On behalf of teachers, pupils, the S.M.C. and the entire parents of the pupils of the school, I write to you with great hope and pleasure.

Friends of Derwentwater and the community we over here are very pleased with you people for all that you have done for us. Friends, the pupils of my school are happy for the pencils, pens and sporting materials are a thing of the past for the reason that what you gave us will serve us for a very long time. The excursion is done and many places were visited thanks to you all for sponsoring the trip. Pictures of the children and the places visited will be sent to you through e-mail.

By the second week of May we would schedule our mock exams which you sponsored. The night watchman is also quite pleased for giving him money for rain coat and boots. The workshop you did with us is also quite helpful to both teachers and pupils. The training exercises we had with Gambia football will be remembered by all the pupils and teachers of the school. Sandra Walker and John are great people, we will miss them and we hope to see them the soonest. For the exercise books we are also making good use of them, every child got one.

Yours faithfully,
Mr. Gibril Bojang
Head Teacher

Sohm Lower Basic school head teacher, Gibril Bojang - a happy man!

Finally... a quick plug

A big word of thanks to Michelle who has run our website, to date, and managed the migration (and teaching process) to enable the new look and style. Michelle runs New Moon Web Designs. She is a hands-on, one woman, web design outfit, who works incredibly quickly, is ever helpful, matches a brief to the letter (even with novices and difficult people, like us) and is fantastically reasonable priced. We can't recommend her enough (this is an unpaid for, and unsought announcement!). So if you need a hand with your web needs, try her out. You won't be disappointed!

Improved Teacher Training Support

We were able to facilitate greatly valued teacher training in Sohm, thanks to assistance of the school and staff of Derwentwater Primary school and organisation and volunteers from Football Gambia in early 2013.

We are investigating innovative, cost-effective ways of supporting the training of Sohm's teachers - to the benefit of the village's students, in future years.

Derwentwater's assistant head, Natalie Carson training some of Sohm Basic's teachers in lesson planning,
February 2013

Topping Up Funds

We established successful Book and Bike Funds in 2013 - which you can read about elsewhere on this site.

We are aiming to maintain these funds, by topping them up by a minimum of £1,000 and £200, respectively, over the coming year.

Your assistance would be greatly appreciated, both by us and the people of Sohm.

Sandra with Kakai Sanyang, (chair of governors), Isamaila Sambou (principal), Nicholas Mendy (deputy principal) and two senior teachers receiving some of the donated books in 2013

Laptop Donations

Earlier this year we took five donated laptops to the schools to assist with ICT teaching and school administration.

We have negotiated free transport to take more out next year. We have set ourselves the target of sending a dozen (with batteries in good working order) out before our next visit in 2014.

Help us achieve our target, save yourself a disposal problem and make a difference in Africa. Call us, and we'll collect.

Senior Secondary school deputy principal, Nicolas Mendy, grateful recipient of a donated laptop