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First Visit February 2007
see report on the
second visit
During Pippa's February 2007 trip she handled what must
be Pageant's fastest ever school project.
About three days after Pippa had arrived
Wandifa came up with a tale of great distress - he had visited a
school in Banjul with another UK couple staying in our hotel and
they had all been appalled at what they had seen. 'Pippa', he said,
'I cannot believe such conditions exist in a Banjul school. Please
can you visit it and see if you can help them?'
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"We set off on Friday morning - Kemo had not
visited the school before, either, so neither of us knew what to
expect. We found Campama Lower Basic School [MAP] to be an originally
reasonably well-built school that had been allowed to fall into
complete disrepair in certain vital areas, the most urgently
needed repairs being to the toilets. These had originally been
built as flush toilets, but both the water supply and the
drainage had failed completely. This had resulted in the
children having to relieve themselves either on the floors of
the toilet blocks or in corners of the school grounds and the
school caretaker was beside himself with distress at his
inability to keep the school clean. |
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one of the broken
toilets |
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Assistance had been sought by the newly
appointed head teacher and her deputy, from both the State Education
Department and from the Port Authority (from which aid for Banjul
schools is apparently sometimes forthcoming), but they had been
turned down and told to do what they could with what remained of
school fees after essential items had been purchased! This meant
that the toilets would stay as they were for the foreseeable future
unless outside help could be found. |
<< Headteacher, Mrs Ndey Jatta Camara
and Deputy, Mr Modou Jasseh |
Having inspected the school as a whole and
the toilets in particular we asked for an estimate for the cost of
repairing both blocks of toilets (16 in all) and were given the
estimate that had been submitted to the authorities - this was
roughly £800, including new washbasins, repairs to all the cisterns
and pipework, new drains and all labour. In this instance Pippa made
a unilateral decision and phoned Ian to ask him to bring the extra
money with him when he came out next Tuesday.
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The plumber was contacted and we met with him
a few days later (Friday) and agreed that Kemo would go with him to
buy the materials on the Monday morning and that he would start work
immediately. He was as good as his word and the repairs to all
sixteen toilets, including an underground repair that did not come
to light until after work had started, was finished before we left
The Gambia. On our final visit all sixteen toilets were checked -
they all flushed, they all drained, the taps for the new washbasins
all worked and the caretaker was (he told us) the happiest man in
Banjul! He said he thought the plumber was a very good man and that
he had done the extra work at no extra cost because of the help
given to the school by outsiders (us). |
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plumber and his two
appretices |
Another aspect of the school that we felt
deserves assistance is furniture - Grades 1 and 2 each have two
classrooms, with an almost complete lack of any seating and very few
desks or tables. The photographs above show the better-furnished
Grade 1 classroom - Kemo is pointing out a small plank laid across 2
broken concrete blocks that has been used as seating. Most of the
children have to sit on the floor.
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classroom at Campama |
Kemo points out the
plank |
During our stay we commissioned a local
carpenter, who has made furniture for several of the local schools,
to make us a sturdy bench & desk unit which would seat three Grade 1
children - this is the standard seating for a Lower Basic School.
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He produced a well-made unit, the cost of
which was just under £40, pictured here. (We could not find any
Grade 1 children for the photograph, so this child agreed to sit at
it for us, but he (Grade 5) is rather on the large side!!)
We would like to provide enough of these
units for all four classrooms - this means 19 units per classroom
(about 57 children per class!), giving a total of 76 units in all,
which means we need to raise about £3,000. |
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<< the new desk unit |
The
crew of Bandit, who took part in the 2007 Azores and
Back Ocean Yacht Race, named Pageant as their chosen charity
and raised £265, which purchased seating and desks for 20 children. Read
more about Bandit and
AZAB 2007.
Request for Information
Pippa has a personal request to make - the
couple who stayed at the Atlantic and who brought Campama to Pippa's
attention were very keen to know how things went and also suggested
that they might be able to help with fund-raising in the future.
Unfortunately we do not have their contact details, so if they read
this would they please get in touch with us.
See our contacts
page for email phone etc.
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