Build new classrooms - St Pauls School, The Gambia

Please help us to help others. We have pledged to build new classrooms and provide ongoing support for St Pauls Nursery & Primary School in Keninding Saibali, Kombo South Region, The Gambia.

St Pauls Nursery & Primary School is a small village school with around 65 pupils ranging from 2 to 13 years old. The school currently has 3 classrooms, two of which have more than one grade being taught in them at the same time, they have adapted the store room into a fourth classroom. They teach from Nursery to Primary Grade 4 (grade one primary is usually started at around 7 years of age) however they cannot facilitate teaching Grade 5 and the closest school is 3km away.

Nice to be Nice Ltd, a not for profit organisation has been established in The Gambia for 10 years sponsoring and supporting children’s education and is currently supporting two other schools with resources and money. They found that by showing external support to the school that the community and the rest of the village also showed more interest and over time their original school has grown from 50 to 700 pupils and has now gained Lower and Middle Basic School Status which means they can educate more children and continue to grow and flourish.

As part of their ongoing sponsorship programme the N2BN team visited St Pauls Primary with the intention to sponsor and offer support to one family; Elizabeth is a single mother with 3 children at St Pauls, her oldest daughter Martha should by now have moved onto the next school to study Grade 5 but does not want to go, when asked why the team were told the 3km walk through the bush is not safe and that people sometimes wait to hijack the children on their way, obviously we asked why does anyone want to abduct the children? We were shocked to hear the words ‘for rape and sexual assault’.

At this point the new mission was already decided, if we can build a new classroom these children can be educated locally and stay safe.

As with all projects the idea soon grew and one classroom quickly became two so the multigrade classes can be separated and there is more room for all. These will be built with enough foundations and steel to be able to support a second level at a later stage giving potential for another two classrooms upstairs.

Education is not free in The Gambia and the headmaster, Mr Victal Bass, told us that most of the families are behind on their payments however he believes the children are better to stay at the school and continue to receive an education rather than be excluded, however this leaves him with no surplus cash for text books, stationery, furniture, food and the general running and upkeep of the school - when we asked why there were no toilet doors we were surprised to be told they had been stolen and there is no money to replace them.

Another immediate problem faced is that the school currently only has a well which is pumped by hand. This often leads to the children receiving injuries and the school has no first aid kit to treat them. They would like to start a garden to grow vegetables for the children’s dinners, also to use as educational resource for agriculture and science.

We would love to be able to offer further continued support for this small school and community who are delighted that people wish to help them from afar, Father Carlos told us their prayers had been answered.

We have people in place to start the build as soon as the school, church and community give us the go ahead, we have yet to work out exact costings but are keen to get the steel and foundations started as soon as possible.

Every little helps, however small or large. All project and admin costs are paid by the members of team and every penny donated will go directly to the project.

“Lama Lama” - Its nice to be nice.

Each one teach one.