| Pippa Howard, ERA’s SEM consultant, and her husband Ian made another trip to The Gambia in October 2004 to visit many of Pageant’s sponsored children and to monitor the progress on several school projects.
| A very hot day (96°F) saw us helping to unload three containers that we had previously packed in the UK – Pageant had sent equipment and materials to a number of schools and colleges, as well as clothing and bed linen to associated village communities. A large number of the packages went to Bakalarr Basic Cycle School, in particular a generous donation of nursery class furniture and play items from Bramley Nursery School in Walton-on–the-Hill.
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| We visited Bakalarr a few days afterwards and re-assembled many of the ride-on toys and playground items. The children of the Bakalarr nursery class were amazed at their good fortune – even though many of them had to be shown how to pedal a tricycle, slide down a slide or enjoy a see-saw, having never seen any such items before.
Several of the village elders came to watch the proceedings and there was great applause for the first child to ride his tricycle around the assembled gathering. |
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Bakalarr - nursery children with their new toys |
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As well as visiting our established school projects we identified projects that we will finance at three ‘new’ schools – roofing a building at Siffoe, renovating a kitchen at Wesley Primary in Banjul and starting a program of projects at Jurunku by renovating some classrooms.
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Jurunku - the headmaster showing us the holes in the blackboards |
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Further information
Pageant has an excellent website, developed expertly by retired ERA staff member Dave Gray. See www.pageant.org.uk.
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PAGEANT supporting education in The Gambia
