Day 4- Mokumbaya

An article in the Gambian national newspaper about the 
"Giving 2 Gambia" project. 

Once again we had an early start, in order to make the most of the few days we had left.  We stopped off at different shops to stock-up on our supplies of rice, books, pens and sweets for the children of Mokumbaya Village.  By this time we were getting recognised by a lot of people because of the media coverage that our group had received.

Buying educational resource supplies before going to Mokumbaya.

The long bumpy journey down the rocky roads proved to be a test for all of us. Along the way we saw locals continuing with their daily duties ranging from carrying water to their homes and herders watching grazing their cattle. 

Upon reaching the outskirts of the village, we saw a large group of young people who ran after our van to welcome us and to get ahead of the queue avoid missing out on the goods we came to distribute.

 We finally reached our destination, and were swarmed by the crowds; again, greeted with a reception worthy of royalty. Once the crowds were settled down by the village elders, an introduction was given on behalf of the Akala(chief).  

Akala's rep welcoming the group

One regular observation was that most of the younger children had no slippers, after speaking to a group of friends one individual decided to give 25 Dalasi each (Approx. 50p) to buy flip-flops for the group, he was astonished at their honesty when the group brought back the change to show him that they had spent the money on the slippers.

Ajhar and friends looking at the bright side of life

Most people in the UK have stacks of shoes and buy a new pair regularly, to think that the only thing these young people wanted was slippers really made us wonder and thank Allah for all we have in the UK. 

The qualities and values of the people of The Gambia are hard to find, they only asked for what they needed and were always appreciative of what we could give.

Learning from our past experiences, when it was time to distribute our supplies we requested the village elders to organise the queues. First, the mothers of the village came to collect their ration of rice, and were then followed by others in the village. At times the queue would become broken, but this only stressed the need and desperation of the locals.

Once the distribution was completed, the group started to mingle with the crowds again, some of our group had a short football match with the locals, mixing up the teams with our group and the locals to bring us all closer together.

Some of us were engrossed in conversations with the elders, learning more about the rich history of The Gambia..

 The old goal posts made of wood. the new goalposts being installed.

The new goalposts being installed.  

School children happy to see the new goal post fitted

A short period after that, it was time for Maghrib Salaah, so we made our way to the local Masjid. It was then we were told the tannoy speakers had stopped working.  So we donated money for them to purchase a new system. Another small donation that’ll make a big difference to the locals. 

Later that night we had been invited by Br.Uthmaan (a charity worker for Noor Aid) to his house to sample a famous Gambian delicacy known as  Domoda  . The brother was very warm and hospitable. May Allah bless him and his family for all his help and support throughout the trip. Ameen.

The Gambian delicacy, Domoda, cooked by Br.Uthmaan's wife.

Satisfied, we headed back to the accommodation in order to recuperate for the next day.

Day 3- Visit the Vice President

On day 3 of the trip we had an audience with Her Excellency Isatou Njie-Saidi Vice President of Gambia, so it was an early start once again. We made our way to the state house with our 'Giving 2 Gambia' t-shirts dressing smart for the occasion! After security checks we were escorted to a room in the State House to be welcomed by the Vice President, Youth & Sports Ministers, Gambian Army General, the head of Islamic Affairs (Amir) as well as the national press.

G2G group outside the State House compound.

Her Excellency was very happy to meet our group and commended the purpose of our trip. Sister Khadijah and the G2G group presented her with a small souvenir as a token of appreciation for welcoming us into the presidential chambers and giving us the time to explain our project aims. 

The meeting concluded with the national press interviewing our youth leader and sister Khadijah. This was broadcasted later that same evening on prime time national news, national radio and was on the front pages of the next day’s newspapers.

In the Presidential Chambers

Gambian soldiers after Salah in the State House compound.

Upon leaving the state house, we made  our way to the Gambian Organisation of the Visually Impaired (GOVI) which is a provider of education and skills based learning for the blind. One of the skills taught to the visually impaired students is rug making, 100% of the sales proceeds is paid to the students who weave the rugs to meet their basic needs and prevent them from having to beg.  

GOVI entrance.

Rugs made by the blind people in Gambia are sold to help with their income 

We offered to support GOVI to continue its great work in helping the blind. Having proposed a few potential projects, they informed us of the need to teach Arabic in braille. Since then, we have contacted a blind institution in South Africa that kindly offered to send a consultant to deliver a one week crash course on Arabic braille for teachers at GOVI, we are still in negotiations trying to get this new project off the ground.     

Day 2- Football/ Markaz

Gambia High School and Gambia Markaz

The hard work of the previous day, along with the travelling and acclimatising merited a lie-in for recovery! Taking into consideration the group mainly consisted of young people, we didn’t want to over-burden them so we chose to relax on the beach and hotel. Some of the gym fanatics spent their afternoon pumping iron!

The group were eagerly awaiting the Super Sunday football match against GHSFC who were crown champions of Gambian Schools Youth League  earlier in the year which was due to kick off at 4:00pm.

Kits provided by the Gambian School's Football team

A line up of both teams merged together.

On arrival at the school we were taken-aback by the scale of the match. We were expecting a friendly kick-around but to our surprise we were greeted by hundreds of fans and were welcomed by the minister of sport for Gambia.

Our opposition were “kitted out” and looked the part, a spare set of kits were handed to us by the school, which we accepted. It wasn't a conventional football pitch that our UK lads were used to, the conditions were best described as similar to beach football. However, we had to adjust to the away pitch, knuckle down to avoid the possibility of an annihilation (you can find the match report at the bottom of this page).

A Quick team talk with the players before resuming the match.

The man of the match, Zakaria Sharif, scoring the pivotal goal in the match.

A group picture of players from both teams.

legendary boots given away to a very happy, young Gambian.

After the match many of us gave our football boots, tops, and even socks to some of the players. To us, it may not seem much, but each and every item that was given away was valued by them; it was written all over their faces. 

It was a great day, the young volunteers made friends with the opposition team and shared their Facebook, Twitter and e-mails details to keep in touch. We then left the school to visit the Markaz to pray our Isha Salah. After prayers, we sat down with some of the local brothers to whom we explained what we were doing and got to know one another. The Amir of the Masjid was very pleased to see us.

 Mosquito nets donated to the Markaz Masjid.

We made a Lillah donation and left the committee with 10 Mosquito nets for people that wanted to sleep over at night in the Masjid.

Although our second day was fairly relaxed, during the day a few of the volunteers who were responsible for finances stayed up until 4am updating our financial records. It was then that the stark reality of the lack of time we had hit home.


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Match Report

The first half was disastrous for our team; we couldn't string even 5 passes together. The sand, humidity, and climate made it very difficult for us to play our usual fluent passing game. We ended the first half 2-0 down and were staring down the end of the barrel!

After an inspirational half time team talk by Asif and some tactical reshuffling, we began the second much more positively. Within 10 minutes of resuming the game we clawed back one goal with a neat finish from Maaz. We had adapted to the playing conditions and settled into our Barcelona-esque tica-taca passing game!

10 minutes after the first goal our G2G team were awarded a free kick. The cross was pinged into the path of Haroon who was brought down by the keeper, penalty! Ismail Marshall kept his composure to make it 2-2!The home team soon scored their 3rd 15 mins from time when their superstar player got his brace to put them back into the lead ( this guy was amazing!) 

Desperately trying to equalise for the third time, we upped the tempo and Jamal broke down the left flank and picked out Zak Sharif who equalised for G2G for the third time.

With 4 minutes remaining in the game, they had scored again, their star man dribbling past our midfield, before taking a powerful shot that beat the keeper from outside the box, game over!

The final whistle was blown. Smiles all round; a truly memorable match. A trophy was awarded to the school for such an amazing experience.

Day 1- Sutu-Sanjang/wells

G2G raised funds for ten well to be dug in Gambia this was the first

The plans for the first full day were to travel to Sutu- Sanjang a small village south of Gambia 1 kilometre from the Senegal boarder.

Along the way we stopped by a village to see two of the ten wells G2G had raised funds for. Prior to our departure from the UK we transferred funds (see account post) to Noor-Aid-Manchester to start the well digging work before we arrived in The Gambia. Noor-Aid-Manchester is a charity, like G2G operate a 100% donation policy. We were overwhelmed by the hard work undertaken by the labouring Gambian brothers; well drilling in the scorching sun was not a task for the weak. With a pickaxe, shovel, a bucket and rope these amazing men were heroes. How different it would be if they had a boring drill. Two volunteers were brave enough to go down the 30ft well only to find that it was hotter at the bottom then it was at the top.

Giving a hand digging 30 feet down under

         in search for fresh water

Meeting young people that will benefit from the wells

 

Having been satisfied with the work and locations of the wells, we jumped back into our hired mini-vans (City Boy & Big Boss). To our astonishment one of them had clocked up more the 460,000 miles! we'll come back to the van story later. 

We hit the road and made our way to a market to purchase rice. Due to the lack of space in our vans we were only able to purchase 20 sacks of rice weighing 25kg each to be distributed in Sutu Sanjang, we also purchased books, pens & sweets for the children.  

 Jamal Mapara (left) & Zakaria Sharif Ali (right)

Yusuf Ali-taleb  (centre), Ismail Adia (right) & Maaz Haffesji(left)

On arriving into Sutu Sanjang we were greeted by the locals and taken to a school in which Sister Khadijah from Noor Aid Gambia had invested a lot of time and effort over the years.

Sister Khadija far right 

Sister Ayesha 

Sister Khadijah was a former employee of NLMCC who has spent most of her life living in Hackney. She and her daughter Ayesha had been a great help in all aspects of this project.



Sutu Sanjang one of the sites for putting up football goal frames. We were informed that each year they need replacing as the rains destroy the feeble wooden stumps. The new goal posts were made of metal and were sturdy. The foundations were dug deep then cemented into the ground.

A picture taken with the school kids in front of the old wooden goalposts.

A few of the group volunteers were former students of Jubilee Primary School. They were pleased to see table and chairs used by some of them many years ago, still going strong and being utilised by students in Gambia. These were donated to Sister Khadijah who had them shipped over for the school.

Suhail  next to a blackboard used for teaching in the school 

Although we were pleased to see facilities available for these children (albeit not in the best of conditions), the true fact was, many of the young people in the village were not in education. Of approximately 1000 children and young people only 90 odd were attending school. Many of them were waiting patiently at the entrance of the village for the food and gifts we had brought for distribution.

The children were very excited and the 

village adults were overjoyed with what they had received.
It’s important to mention, that although there is huge poverty in The Gambia, we never experienced any forms of begging or harassment, this speaks volumes about the patience and virtue of the people of Gambia.

A small group went to visit individuals and families that were living in severe poverty and were therefore eligible for Zakah. These people were identified by the head teacher of the school we visited earlier in the day.

By the end of the day the reality of the situation hit home. We were seeing poverty and its related issues first hand. Many of us had never experienced anything like this before and it was both an eye opening and humbling experience for all the youth and volunteers.

Arrival

We departed 3:00am on the 23rd of March for our 9:00am flight from Gatwick airport. Almost everyone fell asleep in the minibus and plane and got caught sleeping on camera! 

Landed in The Gambia

On arrival the 6 hour flight gave us enough time to prayed Zohar. We were quite pleased that Gambia has no time difference to the UK (GMT) this meant we didn't miss any Salaah in transit.. 

We hopped on to our transfer coach that made it's way to Kombo Beach hotel an 30mins journey from the airport. Having checked-in around 4pm we explored the hotel and surrounding areas for the rest of the evening. The hard work would start the following day.

View from the hotel room