PRESS RELEASE GAMble TRIP April 2006 (
Gambia: Building Links in Education)

A team of 7 GamBLE members have just returned from Farato, a small village in The Gambia where they have been spending their Easter holidays whitewashing, painting murals and toilet walls, running teacher training workshops, cooking meals for 30 teachers, interviewing contractors and generally supporting Yalding School, Farato.

GamBLE is a small charity based in Yalding Kent that has been gradually developing the village school in this tiny West African country. In 6 years they have built four classrooms (for pupils aged 3 - 7 years), a toilet block, a large perimeter wall, an 18 metre well and a large vegetable garden. By reducing the class sizes from 60 to under 40 and designing a teacher training programme the quality of the children's education has improved dramatically. It has become clear that in order to continue with a high level of education the pupils must continue at this school instead of moving on to the next village to the Primary school that has over 60 children in a class, inadequate teaching staff and buildings and where the pupils attend on a split shift system.

 So the main aim of this trip was to select a reliable and experienced contractor to start building the new class room bock that will form the Primary school for children from 8-13 years. Funds are only available for the first two classrooms at the moment and building will commence in May. All being well there will be new classrooms ready for the Grade 1 and 2 pupils moving up in September. 

Four of the team members are teachers, Marion, Trish Sargent, Linda Gilbert and Karen Di Marco and together they ran two separate teachers' workshops, which focused on encouraging their pupils to become curious, creative and rational in their thinking through interactive games and local resources.

The teachers learnt to use materials from the environment for science and crafts and to invent stories and English conversations using simple puppets, role-play and songs. Clare, a nurse, has links with the village Medical Centre and a strong focus of the workshops was on personal hygiene and cleanliness. Derek and Tony made a thorough job of interviewing prospective contractors and consultants in order to ensure that the building of the new school will be in reliable and professional hands.

One of the main successes of GamBLE is the effect the school project has had upon the local communities both in the UK and in The Gambia.

 The villagers of Farato have formed a very hard -working Board of Governors who give their free time to meet and manage the running of the school and the PTA is a new and growing support to the fund-raising activities. The team experienced the Gambian equivalent of the school disco one evening when the Gambian president's own tribal drummers and dances entertained the village and raised a substantial amount of money towards school funds. The Farato villagers are thrilled and honoured that so many people from Yalding, Kent - and elsewhere in the UK - are so interested in travelling to their village.

Firm friendships are made and even those team members who have been more than once, continue to learn so much about each others' cultures and customs. . There is no running water or electricity in the village so preparing a quick meal is an anathema. 

Before lunch can be prepared the women spend hours in the market selecting the items needed for the meal, the older children draw water and fetch firewood and the whole family helps to pound the ingredients with a pestle and mortar. It is no exaggeration to claim that each member of the team found the whole experience deeply moving and memorable and on returning to England it has been difficult to adjust to our sophisticated, rushed and sometimes stressful lives.