It is March.  Why is GambiaRising still funding new scholarships for this school year?  Because young people who have dropped out (and their mothers and grandmothers) are coming nearly every day to one of our Coordinators' homes to ask for help to get back to school.  At this time in the year most of our funds are depleted, so we start by squeezing the budgets.  But many of our donations come in monthly, and that allows us to fund new scholarships with some of them if we are careful.  And when new donors join us, we can do even more.

Let's celebrate some of those who came to us in February, all of whom are now back in school.  If you doubt that $3 per month can change a child's life, ask these children if it is changing theirs!

In these extraordinary times, we must focus all our resources on those whom we can help go back to school.  That means we have no spare funds for crucial efforts to support (or build) rural schools.  Instead of using general funds, we are using targeted campaigns such as the one to build the Brikamanding Lower Basic school last summer.  So we were especially grateful when Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Jes Walton and her mom Loni,  made just such an proposal at Christmas time.  Our approach for these projects is to buy the materials, while the community provides the land and the labor.  I am continually astonished at how much can get done this way.  And when Loni's business, Yolo Clothing, decided to match the donations, we knew this could be a significant program.  Working with Upcountry Coordinator Kebba Sanyang, we scoped out badly needed teachers' housing for four upcountry schools where lack of housing is proving a serious barrier to recruiting and retaining teachers.

Project #1:  Build teachers' housing for the new St. John's School for the Deaf in Basse.  GambiaRising has been supporting students at the School for the Deaf in Kanifing for many years, and we greatly admire their work.  St. John's recently opened a three-classroom branch in the Upper River Region capital of Basse.  Classes are limited to 10 students per class; there are 9 grades, in double shifts, and the school has a capacity of 60 students.  ​But the school has a crisis: teachers are having real problems finding housing near the school that they can afford.  ​And so after dinner, the desks are pushed back, and the teachers spread mats on the floor to sleep.  

A second set of housing is now being built by the teachers and parents of St. Joseph's School for Girls in Basse as well.  And housing for two off-the-road rural schools in Central River Region are just getting under way.  

As you can see, both in the U.S. and in The Gambia, people are rising to the occasion.  This is definitely the toughest year we've seen in terms of need.  It is also the the year in which we've been deeply touched by people's generosity.  More than one of you sent part or all of your stimulus check.  I'll never forget the donor who, when I thanked him for his annual donation early in the pandemic and asked if his employer would be matching his annual gift again this year, replied by saying "Oh, I got laid off."  

So thank you for making this work possible, for giving these kids a chance.  If you haven't joined us lately and are able to, I promise that any gift you are able to make or any monthly donation you can initiate, will directly change lives within days of your making it.

Great things are happening through this collaboration we call GambiaRising.  Let's keep it up.

Mike McConnell
Managing Trustee
GambiaRising
www.gambiarising.org/donate

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