We have recently returned from The Gambia and stayed in Si-Kunda, we had a busy and enjoyable time as always. There are quite a few updates to share so we will be updating the Projects page on the website very soon. Also the next newsletter will be distributed in January.

Si-Kunda School has re-opened and is progressing well. This picture is of some of the children enjoying their lunch!

There is much to do, but we have had a good start. Many thanks to all of you who responded to our request for help to support the school, its great to see it doing so well.

If anyone knows of where we can source outside play equipment (either free or at a reasonable cost) we would be pleased to hear from you.

Have a great Christmas, and a Happy New Year!!

Our Newsletter no.26 is now ready to be sent out, if anyone would like a copy who doesnt already receive one regularly, please email or ring me, details on the website.

I am a bit late with it this time, so my apologies for that! But hopefully everyone will enjoy reading our updates and news.

Our last two projects are now completed, all the current students are waiting to enrol in the next school year. Sankung is keeping busy ensuring all the papers are done, new uniforms made, shoes and bags are purchased, and chasing up the school reports which should be due very soon.

Fonkoi Kunda School..... we have recently installed Solar panels, this will be used to not only provide light but also to enable the school to create some income (by charging mobile phones to local commuities) which is being used to provide supplements to the school midday meal of rice for all the children in the school.
Badumeh Kuta School.... we are currently building a school boundary wall for this school, photographs to follow

Happy Christmas to all our supporters and many thanks for all your help this year! We returned from Gambia mid December, so I will be posting updates and photographs over the next week or two, and also in January I will be writing up our next newsletter,
With very best wishes for the New Year,
from Sue and the rest of the charity committee

We have had another great trip to The Gambia, returning yesterday. A lot has been happening, and we included visits to Toniataba, Fonkoi Kunda, Badumeh Kuti and Sikunda Schools. We had two meetings with the Commissioner of the Lower River Division, spent time in the Sikunda village hall, sewing room and library, a brief visit to Soma Hospital and met up with many of our sponsored students which was one of the main focus of this trip, and found time on the last day to be interviewed on Gambia West Coast Radio along with two of our high achieving students Fatou Jammeh and Lamin Njie. We would liked to have had the time to do more, and include a school in Soma where we sent supplies last year and the local Red Cross, but that will have to be next time now. However, the main tasks we set out to do were achieved and each time we go we review what we are doing, what needs to be done, and each time somehow things always fall into place. We have learnt and experienced so much over the years, and every time I go there is something new. If anything, this trip has renewed my enthusiasm, and that is down to the current and past students I met this time who have achieved so much, and without their sponsors they would probably not be who they are now. So a very huge thank you to all of you who contribute to help these students realise their ambitions.
There is inevitably some who don't reach their potential for a variety of reasons, as is the same in any country, but for the ones who do then it makes us very proud of them. And certainly education is not wasted even on those that maybe don't make use of it straight away, they often see the need for it when they have children of their own, so will then encourage their children to learn. So if anyone reading this would like to sponsor or help at all, please contact me or anyone listed on our contacts page, a contribution no matter how small really does make a difference!

This picture is of Omar, he is 10 years old, and is doing extremely well at school, he is now a school monitor (which is like a school prefect in UK). He is given quite a lot of responsibility and takes his role very seriously. He is a fun loving boy whom we have known since he was born, he realises how important his education is to him, and his family are very supportive to ensure he makes full use of it.

Hi all, there will be a short delay in the distribution of our newsletter this time, it will be completed and sent out end of February (instead of the usual January). This is because we are visiting Gambia this month and it makes sense to delay the newsletter to ensure we have the very latest news and photographs to put into it. So I am sorry for the delay, but it will be done!
Also I intend to get this website updated in March also, so watch this space!

Here are some of the supplies we sent for Soma Medical Centre, October 2014...................

October 2013 brief update

All our students have started in their new year at school, and our latest shipment arrives in Banjul this week which Sankung (our project manager and co-ordinator) will then collect and distribute to the villages, schools and hospital. All the boxes are labelled and will be delivered accordingly. Thank you so much to everyone who has contributed! Sankung always makes sure that the school and hospital committees are present when the supplies are handed over, and if possible takes photographs as well.
Our July newsletter was distributed a little late this time - August\September, due to some printing problems, but if anyone other than on our distribution list would like to receive one, please let me know and I will forward one on to you.


Sue, 01296 688039, or email sjones@friendsofsikunda.org

Daisy and Aiden's Garden Party

29th June we held a garden party, initiated by Daisy who made sure that it happened and helped with all the planning of it. Aiden was a fantastic help on the day, and did a great job along with Ruby who made invitations for her schoolfriends, and some of Daisy's friends also helped out when needed on the craft stall in the afternoon. We were very proud of them all, they raised the fantastic sum of £286.30!! The weather was great,  and it was very well attended, very many thanks to everyone who supported them and helped to raise this money which will go towards supporting Si-kunda Village School.

Updates

Our Projects page for 2013 has just been updated, please check it out for our latest news.

We will be producing another newsletter for our supporters in July, which will also be available for anyone wishing to read it. Let me know if you are not already on our distribution list and would like to receive a copy.

Fran's grandson Aiden and my grandaughter Daisy are going to have a small garden party 29th June, they want to raise funds for Si-Kunda Village School.  They will have a stall of African crafts, a tombola, lucky dips, and refreshments. This will be held at 3 Moorlands Road in Wing, LU7 0RD, 2pm - 4pm.

Sue

Sponsorship

We are currently looking for four sponsors,
Two boys need sponsoring through school, one of them is pictured here, Omar.
To sponsor one of these boys would be £10 a month, this will pay for uniforms, school bags, school shoes, school books, school fees and anything else they need to help them progress through their education.

We need to have an extra teacher to start in September at the Sikunda Village School, so would very much like to have a sponsor her - we intend to have a lady teacher to join Saine and Modou. To sponsor her salary would be £15 a month

And lastly, if possible we would like to find a sponsor for a mature student who very much wants to do the next level of computer studies starting in June, for six months, the cost will be £140.00 as a one-off fee.

In fact any amount no matter how small, from as little as £1 a month does really make a difference, and all the donations go to what they should go to, and none taken for administration costs.

Gift Aid if you are a taxpayer also boosts the donation by another 22%
If you are interested, please contact me, Sue, either by telephone, 01296 688039, or email sjones@friendsofsikunda.org

Please see the next blog below for the latest pictures and news from our trip this month.

April 2013 trip to Gambia

We will update the projects page soon, but meanwhile here are a few pictures from last week: 

The Women's Garden Project, this is looking really good, lots of vegetables being grown, the women were really pleased with the produce so far this year and say its the best year yet!

The Skills Centre has a lot of young girls starting to sew and crochet. Syah is doing a great job managing them all

Suwado with some of the children from her compound in Si-Kunda

Dan taking Ansu's nursery class in Toniataba School!

Unloading our luggage after our journey back to the coast

With Abdoulie, Paseedy and Fatou

Trip to Si-Kunda, April 2013

I 

I shall be going to Gambia again in April, on the 12th. This time my son Dan is coming with me, so we will be updating this website with news and photographs of our projects when we get back.

February 2013 Trip to Gambia

Gloz, Marje and I have just returned from a trip to The Gambia. We had a wonderful time, and achieved quite a lot in the time we had. The compound in Busumbala is well on the way to be habitable, the ceilings done, floors tiled, doors and windows in, hopefully it wont be long now till Sankung and his family are able to move in. We met quite a few of our older students who are in further education, and all seem happy and well. We intend to send out updates of our all our students to their sponsors in the next few weeks. We are providing further excercise books to Toniataba and Fonkoi Kunda schools to see them through to the end of the school year. While we were in Si-Kunda we had the well pump repaired, it had become very difficult to draw up water, so need some replacement parts. The workshop is being managed by Syah, and they need some sewing needles, both hand and Singer machine, also some very thin (ideally cotton) materials to practice their 'cutting out' skills with and basic sewing for those wishing to learn. If anyone can help we would be very grateful! There are currently 88 children registered at the Sikunda Nursery School, they would like some new toys, but nothing to bulky that would be difficult and expensive to send by shipment. We always need pencils and colouring pencils, rulers, erasors, biros and excercise books for the schools we support if anyone has any spare? We managed to get to the Independence Day celebrations in Banjul stadium. The first time any of us has been and we were very glad we went, it was the 48th year celebration of Independence. It was quite an event with the military, schools and cultural groups all represented. The Gambian president was present, also a few other African leaders. I do realise that the website really does need updating, and that is on the list of things to do, so watch this space. Many thanks to all our supporters, and the Bonus Ball continues to roll on which really does help with our revenue. Sue

Newsletter no.19

Our latest Newsletter (no.19) has now been distributed, so all our sponsors should receive one any time now. If there is anyone reading this that would like a copy, please let me know, either by phone 07717 821 604, or email sjones@friendsofsikunda.org

September 24th

Sankung is busy at the moment (and has been for the last few weeks!) organising all the payments and placements of all our students at their schools and colleges for the 2012/13 school year.

Pakalinding Upper Basic School now has the windows in the computer room repaired where needed, and excercise books were ordered for the schools we support.

We distributed our last newsletter to our sponsors in July, so if anyone reading this would like a copy then please contact me on sjones@friendsofsikunda.org or telephone on 01296 688039.

Sue

Sankung and Oumie's Garden Party!
What a wonderful day we had, the rain kept off, Sankung and Oumie from The Gambia were our guests of honour, and Sankung kept busy making Ataya tea for everyone. So many of you came who have supported our charity for all these years, and it was great for Sankung and Oumie to meet you all. Oumie had helped me make the chicken yassa Gambian style the day before so along with that and the great barbeque cooked up by Mark, with Les toiling away in the kitchen making sure everything was ready in time for our meal at 4pm, it all went well. At the same time we have raised a lot of funds as well, the grand total will be announced on the website in a few days. We will have photographs and a write up in the July newsletter.

We had so much help without which we couldn't have done it, all the trustees and committee members and families, and to name just a few Les and Kate, Richard and Myra, and Daisy my eight yr old granddaughter was a little star running the Treasure Hunt stall and collecting money for us, and I know Aiden Fran's grandson was helping too, thankyou so much to everyone!

Sankung and Oumie's Garden Party

We will very soon be sending out flyers to all our supporters to invite you to our fund raising Garden Party, to take place on May 19th, 2pm till late, at Monks Risborough. Our very special guests of honour are going to be our Charity Project Manager from The Gambia, Sankung Jammeh and his lovely wife Oumie. More details to follow, but we will be having refreshments all day - Barbeque, Gambian dishes to sample, Auction, Live music, Raffle, lots of stalls, bouncy castle, lots going on, but also places to just sit and relax in beautiful surroundings. This is Sankung and Oumie's first visit to England, and we would like to invite you to meet them and help make their trip a lifetime experience to be remembered always! Watch this space! You can if you wish contact me for details.............sjones@friendsofsikunda.org

February 2012 Trip

Anne, Matt, Gloz, Richard and I were in Gambia in February. We had a great time, and also achieved just about all we wanted to do on this trip, which is a miracle in itself! The Busumbala compound now has a roof, and lots of work put in by Matt and Yaya to make sure it was done so well. The ceilings will be put up this week by Yaya and his team. The Sikunda Village School has been painted inside and out, plus all the furniture has had attention to make sure it is all as it should be and the Community and Skills Centre has been given a paint job outside so it looks very smart! All the windows have been completed in Toniataba School and we have provided some dustbins for their clean campaign at the school. We had a meeting with the Gambia Red Cross Secretary General at the headquarters as we work quite closely with the Lower River Division Branch of the Red Cross in trying to help as much as we can. Richard worked at Pakalinding School in the computer lab with Kim a Peace Corp volunteer, in setting up new virus checking and rebuilding pc's where needed, etc., All this was done and so much more, we will be updating the projects section of this website as soon as we can. Our bonus ball is into its next session, we are so pleased to see that continue. We have just given a presentation to the Rotary Club of Bletchley this week, and had a very enjoyable lunch with them, we were presented with a wonderful donation and boxes of supplies for our shipment, we are so very grateful to them for supporting us for so many years. We have many wonderful supporters and thank you all! More updates to come..... Sue

We fly tomorrow!

We are going to Gambia tomorrow morning, 2nd Feb. Matt and Anne will come with me for the first two weeks, then Richard and Gloz will join us for the third week. We have lots to do, including the main focus this time to get the roof on the Busumbala compound plus as much more done to the compound as is possible in the time. Matt will be working with Yaya a builder who lives locally. We will of course be visiting our projects, schools and as many of our students upcountry as time allows. Updates will be put onto this website when we return, and lots of news will be shared with you in our next newsletter in July.

The picture is of one of our deliveries of excercise books in 2011 to a local school.

Sue

Banking......

This is for all of our regular sponsors - just so that you are aware …. We have had problems with our bank, they have decided (without telling us) to close business to all trustee accounts. It was not until after many phone calls and visits to the bank that we found out why we were having problems with online banking and new investors donations. Fortunately, we believe we have not lost any donations and we have been assured that is the case, but we do need to open another account to take over all our accounts. This means of course we will be sending out forms with the new account details which will need signing to enable this to happen. Meanwhile we have it confirmed that the old account will remain open until all transactions can be transferred. We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause and hope you will understand and return to us the signed forms in the stamped addressed envelopes that we will send to you in due course There are many other charitable accounts that must be having the same issues, and we just hope that we can get this sorted as quickly and seamlessly as possible. We have been told that we are getting some compensation for all the hassle it has caused us, so for that at least we are pleased.

Please be assured that all our monthly donations are being recieved with no problems.

Sue