News

Gambia village project full steam ahead

Children with thumbs up! Festival Medical Services supports a Gambia village project that is currently undertaking four major initiatives:

New classrooms
Pupil numbers were restricted to 140 due to a lack of classroom space, but the impending construction of two new classrooms will help increase the amount of pupils the school can accommodate.

Playground
The construction of a solid perimeter fence allowed the school to make positive strides towards turning a barren, muddy playground into a much more agreeable area with trees, flowers and other plants.

Previously any saplings or vegetation was promptly eaten by animals that could wander into the playground as they pleased.

An anticipated link to the Eden Project ‘Gardens for Life’ scheme is also expected to improve the appearance and ambience of the playground.

Women’s garden
A large communal women’s garden in which cash crops are grown providing the main source of income for the village, has also suffered from the curse of hungry, unrestricted animals. It is currently surrounded by a fragile wooden fence that has to be replaced annually and provides little protection from the unwanted grazers. The Gambia village project is hoping to improve crop growing education, including sustainable practices, as well as providing sturdier perimeter fencing.

Community Bus
The Gambia village project provided a community bus three years ago that isnow in need of replacement. It’s purpose is to:

to take emergencies to hospital
to take women to ante and post natal clinics
to take women to market in the early morning, enabling them to take more produce to sell
to service the needs of the school
to serve the community

However, many of the villagers simply cannot afford to pay to use the bus, so even though the original plan was for it to be self-financing, it is obvious that there needs to be a re-think and now the project is helping to raise funds for a replacement.

Updated 16/05/08