Bantaba November 2023
Irene and John return to Bantaba
Irene Childerley of Cambridge Sawston Rotary and John Martin from Cambridge Rotary, returned to The Gambia in November to work on the final phase of building the education and skills centre in Saloum Daba, Madiana.
Since our last visit the Gambian workers and apprentices successfully tiled the shower, toilets and kitchen. Metal doors and windows with glass were hand made and fitted.Our main task was to work with the electrician to install electricity using solar panels for the education and nursing centre.
John continued to teach carpentry by working with the boys to build a partition to separate the IT centre from the living accommodation.
We handed over 3 laptops donated by Rutherford Rotary, which were cleaned and updated by Emmaus Reboot.
In the IT room, John also set up a television with DVD player that was donated by friends.
We distributed the hundreds of books received from Duxford Primary school to the Madiana Village Development Committee and visited a very rural impoverished islamic school with some more books.
We arranged the final handover with the VDC and appointed our new manager Bob Jallow who is setting up a committee to run the centre for the benefit of the community, while making it sustainable. The Keita family will continue to live on site and help in running the centre.
We still need to raise funds to reimburse the expenses and to continue to support the running of the centre, especially in the first year when income from the project will be limited.
