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

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