Merry Xmas and a Happy New Year!

We returned from Gambia mid- December, and have since been busy with Xmas preparations! We had a good trip, and have quite a few updates to share which will be very soon. Our BonusBall game will be renewed in January, though we are going to give it a break of a couple of weeks to get us over the Christmas and New Year period, Marje will be contacting all of you who take part soon. Anyone else interested please send her an email - mjones@friendsofsikunda.org. Its a bit of fun, gives you the opportunity to win a cash prize each week and at the same time supports this charity.

Thankyou all of you who support us in so many ways, we appreciate it very much.

We wish you a Very Happy and Prosperous New Year!

From Sue and all trustees of Friends of Si-Kunda.

Si-Kunda Visit!

Not long to go now, Marje and I are off to The Gambia the end of next week! So we are busy preparing for all that needs to be done so that when we are there we know exactly who we need to see, what we need to do, etc etc. Although plans inevitably change to a certain extent at least we will feel we are more or less organised by the time we get there! I will post a report on the blog when we get back mid-December, and the next newsletter will be produced sometime in January.

Gifts to Share.....

These are Gift Donations with three designs to choose from!

Very often it is difficult to find that unusual gift, so perhaps we have found the answer for you!

No.1

No.2

No. 3

All you need to do is :

a)       Choose your card from one of the designs shown  

b)       Choose where your donation gift is to go from the descriptions below

c)       State the amount you wish to give as a donation gift to your friend or relative for Christmas

d)       Send all these details plus a cheque for the amount to us, Friends of Si-Kunda,  3 Moorlands Road, Wing, Nr. Leighton Buzzard, Beds, LU70RD

The description will be in the card, and will show the amount gifted. You will then receive this Gift card with free P&P for you to then pass on as a Christmas Gift.

 Donation Descriptions

1.To help with the shipment costs of sending vital supplies to the schools and hospital we support in  Lower River Division, The Gambia, West Africa.

2.This gift will help to supply new windows in three classrooms at Toniataba School, making the classrooms much lighter and also providing the ventilation needed to make these classrooms so much more comfortable in the hot and humid weather.

3.  This gift will provide a sack of rice to supplement the rice supply for Si-Kunda Nursery School, where there are 80 children relying on the school daily for their lunch!    - (this gift is £10 for a sack)

4. This gift will provide 4 exercise books for every pound, and will be given to children attending local schools in the Si-Kunda region. 

An example of what you might expect inside the card -

If you wish to purchase one of these Gift Share cards, please make cheques payable

to 'Friends of Si-Kunda Charity'

Many thanks

Christmas Cards for Sale!

We now have four designs of Christmas Cards to choose from.  All proceeds will help to pay for the new roof on the Busumbala compound -

No.1.  The Robin   -  from original painting by Marje Jones

No.2.  Walk to Church  -   from original painting by Marje Jones

No.3.  A Winter Scene  -  from original painting by Doreen Wright

No.4.  Yfelin, North Wales -  photographed by Richard Colville

Inside each card has the wording –

       

     Wishing you a Very Merry Christmas & Happy New Year 

No 1. The Robin

No2. Walk to Church

No.3  A Winter Scene

These cards are £3.50 for 5,
or £6.50 for 10, including postage

No.4 Yfelin

If you wish to order a selection, 
please send your request 
plus payment to -

Friends of Si-Kunda Charity

3 Moorlands Road, 

Wing, Nr. Leighton Buzzard, 

Beds, LU7 0RD

 

All cheques payable to "Friends of Si-Kunda Charity"

We will endeavour to send by return within a few days

Gift House

Hi,
Just to say we are a little behind with getting this "Gift House" up and running, my apologies for that. It is just taking longer than we thought to organise. However, we will soon (hopefully) be advertising Christmas and Gift cards on the website and then concentrate on getting the Gift House up and running as soon as we can. Meanwhile if any of you would like information about our Christmas and gift cards please let me know. sjones@friendsofsikunda.org

Enrolments, updates, etc.,

We have just enroled four more of our students at the GTTI, The Gambian Technical Training Institute - Sainy, Sanna, Lamin B Jammeh and Yankuba. They will be joining Seedy Dembo Jammeh who is about to start his second year of training as an electrician. We wish them all congratulations on being being accepted at the GTTI, and look forward to seeing them again on our next visit at the end of November.

Fatou has done exceptionally well in her exams and is now in Grade 12, she has ambitions to be a journalist. She is a very determined young lady and works hard, we wish her well.

We now have our next two trips to The Gambia booked, 28th Nov - 12th Dec 2011, and also 2nd Feb - 24th Feb 2012.

There is a lot of work done by Sankung in making sure all our students (we have 34 currently) are enroled in their appropriate schools and grades, uniforms made, text books purchased, any transport arrangements made, school fees paid, etc etc. But once they are all settled in their new school year, then plans are going to be made to have a roof put on the compound we have built in Busumbala this Autumn. We look forward to getting this progressed with the hope of Sankung and family being able to move in next Spring, along with any students needing accomodation.

New school uniforms are being made for the Si-Kunda Nursery School children, and I am pleased to say that three of the ladies who have had training at the Skills Centre are helping to make them.

Bonus Ball Game no.5!

This week we have just started our fifth game of the Bonus Ball, and our first winner this time is Eileen Stone, congratulations Eileen!!

This is proving to be a successful and enjoyable way of raising funds for our charity's projects and at the same time a new winner each week receives a cheque for £25.00

Long may it continue!!

Most of you have been with us since the very first game.

Many thanks to all of you who take part!

Olwen

Sadly our lovely mum-in-law Olwen has passed away. She has always been so supportive of us and this charity, and also sponsored one of our students, Ousmann. We shall ensure that he completes his education in her memory as that is what she would have wished. Also, the bonus ball number winner this week is No.42 which is her number. So we will leave her winnings in the charity to go towards the Si-Kunda Nursery School fund.

Sue and Marje.

Newsletter no.16.

Our Newsletter no. 16 has just been issued, so those of you on our mailing list should receive one any day now.

If anyone else would like a copy, or you believe you should have received one and haven't, please email me - sjonesfriendsofsikunda.org or telephone 01296 688039.

We will be pleased to send one on to you!

It includes amongst other news, reports on Si-Kunda Nursery School, Toniataba School and the Si-Kunda Community Centre & Workshop.

Sue

BonusBall update

We have just started our 4th version of the BonusBall....having given out over £1,000 in prize money so far, it is working very well whilst also raising funds for our projects.

If anyone else would like to join in, please send an email to mjones@friendsofsikunda.org for details!

Bee Keeping

BeeCause Charity have provided Beekeeping training for some of our people from Si-Kunda. They all enjoyed it very much and are now very keen to put into practice all they have learned. They have 'catcher' boxes in the village now and at least one box has bees already in it! We met Jenny, Mick and Peter from BeeCause while in Gambia in March, they are so enthusiastic and willing to help get an enterprise going in Si-Kunda, which is great news for us. This is something we have wanted to do for some time now, so at last it looks like it is now happening! So we are very grateful to all of them at BeeCause for providing so much help and encouragement. I will give updates on the blog as this progresses.
In the picture are both Ansumana's who will be the first beekeepers, along with Sankung and Abdoulie who attended the training.

April updates

Well after a wonderful month in The Gambia the updates are now on our 'Projects' page for 2011.

We have had a very good few weeks since our return as we have had presentations to do which include The Red Cross at Irchester who support us so well. We have received some very generous donations, one of which from the Rotary Club of Bletchley who have supported us for many years now, we had a very enjoyable lunch and gave a presentation which was received well.

We had a very successful sale at BarclayCard in Northampton organised by Dave; which Marje, Anne and I also attended. It was extremely well supported and a very enjoyable day for us.

The BonusBall is continuing to run which also helps a lot with raising funds for our projects.

BeeKeeping training is starting today, we have two men from the village attending in a small town called Lamin, and they will bring their skills back to the village to start a new enterprise. So this is great news!

We installed windows into one classroom last week in Toniataba school to increase the ventilation and provide enough light. We intend to do two further classrooms very soon.

Marje is going to have a garden fete on 21st May if any of you live near enough to Rushden, Northants to attend, you wil be very welcome, please put the date in your diary!

We want to update some more of the website and provide some video clips, plus further fundraising ideas, so we will be busy in the coming months with all of that and more presentations and sales to do.

More updates soon, many thanks for all your support .............Sue

Web updates

New updates for 2011 are going onto the projects page of the website this week with photographs...
The month in Gambia was very enjoyable and productive. The time went by so quickly I would loved to have stayed another month! We will be visiting again later in the year, and I will put some more updates on this blog in a few days

February - March trip

I have just got back from a month in The Gambia, and will be writing some updates in the next few days, so watch this space!!