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Peace Corps Training
The swearing-in ceremony for new Peace Corps Volunteers in The Gambia typically takes place at the Ambassador's residence. Government officials attend. Many speeches are delivered. Sometimes there is TV coverage. It is a celebratory affair.
But before that swearing in, for more than three months, those new Volunteers were not yet Peace Corps Volunteers. They were trainees. After a few days of orientation near the headquarters, they were bussed to a more rural part of the country, where they lived with families who spoke the specific language the Trainees would need to learn, attended classes in a central training location, then returned to their "training villages" to get comfortable with the rhythms of Gambian village life.
These training villages and the role they play in the success of Peace Corps' training programs are difficult to over-state. In many ways, they do some of the most important parts of orienting trainees to the new culture, not to mention the practical lessons in daily living, cooking, and immersion language lessons. But, unlike Peace Corps sites, the villages themselves miss out on the benefits of having a PCV living and working there for several years. After the trainees are sworn in, they are assigned to different villages, often quite distant from the one in which they just spent such an intense three months.
Kiang
For most of the past few decades, Peace Corps The Gambia has located its trainings and training villages in the Kiang district of the Lower River Region (LRR). So when GambiaRising began a program in the Lower River Region last year, it was for the first time possible to think about including the Kiang's training villages in the places we covered. This summer we started visiting them one by one. While we knew that COVID-19 was knocking much of the Gambian economy on its heels, we weren't prepared for the extent of the need we found.
Sare Samba
The first village we were called to visit was Sare Samba. A local teacher had heard about our program and asked if we could come meet some of the village's at-risk young people. We wrote about our visit there in August (https://bit.ly/SareSambaGR) and the response to that letter was wonderful. First, a recently graduated GambiaRising student from Sare Samba who had just won a scholarship for graduate study in Rwanda donated 3,000 dalasis ($60) before heading for Kigali. Then a returned volunteer who had trained in Sare Samba introduced us to the widow of another who pledged support for all 34 of Sare Samba's children in need.
This was so encouraging that we decided to create a Training Village Fund, so that others could direct contributions to expand and include other villages. (https://www.gambiarising.org/training-village-fund.html)
Then we started visiting other training villages.
Jiroff
Around the same time, we got a call from Haddy B., a 22-year old girl from Jiroff who had dropped out of school six years ago. Could we come to Jiroff and meet her? Would we be willing to meet others who, like her had dropped out or were likely to? Our Coordinator agreed. Haddy knew her community; when we arrrived, she had identified 31 others who were at risk (many of whom had already dropped out). And when we offered support, Haddy was thrilled to be included; she'll re-start in 10th grade when schools open in a few weeks.
Haddy brought us to Jiroff.
Kaiaf
Several donors have donated extra funds this year, and additional donations were coming to the Training Village Fund. So we went next to Kaiaf, one of the most-used training villages. Working with Mamadi Nyabally, headmaster at the lower basic school there, we identified 25 students in need of support. Including these three:
When Isatou was in 5th grade, her father decided she should go to the Arabic school. She refused, and her mother supported her decision. But her mother had no funds, and she had to drop out. Now, at age 14, Isatou will be re-enrolling in 5th grade.
Babucarr lives with his grandmother, whose health is failing. When she told him she could no longer afford to support his schooling, he went to Kombo to find relatives who could. Failing that, he returned to Kaiaf. He will be 14 when he re-enrolls in 3rd grade.
Kumba is 16 years old. Her father thinks it is time for her to be married. But Kumba refused, and her father withdrew funding for her schooling. With support from GambiaRising, she will soon begin 9th grade.
Massembeh
The Peace Corps training center has been in Massembeh for the past few years, after being gifted with the site by the Gambian government and upgrading it signficantly. While trainees live in training villages clustered in the region, they come to the training center for lessons in everything from language to culture to skills specific to their sector (Education, AgroForestry, Health, etc.) When we received a gift from a returned PCV to fund the students from Kaiaf, we decided we could take on another village.
Our Coordinator for LRR, Alieu Gaye, is a teacher in the Gambian schools. The Ministry of Education "Cluster Monitor" for his first posting out of college also serves as the Village Development Committee chairman in Massembeh. So Alieu called him and explained our program and our scholarship selection criteria. When he went to Massembeh to meet scholarship candidates, he met 31 students, all girls, ages 13 to 22, hoping to get support. More than half were not in school last year. We were delighted to be able to say "Yes" to them.
When Kadjjatou's father abandoned his family, she and her mother decided to help the younger kids in the family stay in school by Kadijatou dropping out. She's 18, and with our support she will re-enroll in 11th grade.
After Mariama's father died, her mother struggled to both feed her and support her education. After 9th grade, she gave up. With our support, Mariama will be starting senior secondary school in a few weeks.
Oumie's father also died, and her mother managed to keep her in school until she fell ill last year. Oumie dropped out, but went to see Ousman Jarju, the VDC Chairman to ask if he knew how she could get help. Last week, he introduced her to GambiaRising.
In Sare Samba, Jiroff, Kaiaf, and Massembeh, in just four villages, we had identified, and committed to support, 125 students. As you may have noticed from the group photos, most of them were girls. (92 to be precise.) It is always shocking to me to find so many young people having dropped out or likely to, now that the elimination of school fees has made school so much less costly in recent years. But it surely speaks to the level of poverty and desperation that many Gambian families are experiencing. Certainly when you meet these kids' mothers, you are clear that it was not a choice to take their children out of school or to send them to school with worn and torn uniforms or no books. They are just trying to figure out how to feed their kids; in that context schooling is something they really want their children to have, but it is out of reach.
Between increased donations from several donors, donations to the Training Village Fund, and specific donations for Sare Samba and Kaiaf, we're going to be able to pay for them all. We've also identified 20 more students in Nemakuta and Wurokang and want get them support before schools open next week, so if you can chip in, please do. (https://bit.ly/GRTVF)
If you are a GambiaRising donor, you are part of something truly remarkable. Lives are being changed in clear and demonstrable ways. Girls especially are staying in school or going back to school. This month alone, I am aware of two marriages cancelled with the support and intervention of our Coordinators (along with offers of support for the girl to stay in school).
If you haven't donated yet this school year, and are able to, this would be a perfect time to do so. Schools are opening this month. So much is at stake. And it takes so little to change a life.
Mike McConnell
Managing Trustee
GambiaRising
www.gambiarising.org
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