The amount of distress caused by our July letter about FGM (female genital mutilation) was moving to me.  Ostensibly, the news was very good — the national ban on the barbaric practice would stay in place, and would continue to be enforced.  The problem is that it has never been universally enforced, and the practice will continue, in secret, in many villages.  

I said in the letter that I felt strongly that education, not laws, would ultimately end the practice.  After all, it is a practice carried out by women, in most cases with the assent of the mothers of the girls.  Educated women don't carry out such practices.  And educated mothers (and older sisters) don't agree to have it done to their daughters.  So the fact that the literacy rate in The Gambia has gone from 36.8% to 58.7% from 2000 to 2022 is not only remarkable, it is hopeful.

Let me point to a specific example to bring this home, and to the part that GambiaRising's volunteers and donors are playing in bringing it about.  

Peace Corps' training center is in the Lower River Region village of Massembeh. There are strict rules about Peace Corps directly aiding villages near its facilities, but the Massembeh school is used as a practice site for new Education volunteers.  When we began working in the Lower River Region, we placed an emphasis on Peace Corps' training villages, and we included Massembeh on that list.  And last year, the Ministry of Basic and Secondary Education sent the Massembeh school a new head teacher: Alieu Gaye, who is also GambiaRising's Coordinator for the Lower River Region.

When I visited Massembeh in January,  I snapped this photo from his office wall:

That is 64% girls! 

You will note that most of the teachers are women.  So the students at the school see strong professional women every day, and raise their sights for what might be possible in their own lives.  (Two more women student teachers arrived just after my visit and are now on the roll.)

As you might guess, things are not so simple. When I visited the school, all but one class had gone home for the day.  But the women teachers were still there.  

Most of the young women were recent college graduates; posted to a rural school as their first assignment.  All were planning to ask for transfers to a school where suitable housing was available.

Three was one clear solution, but it was not within our means to help; as long as our scholarship program has a waiting list, housing projects have to take a back seat.  Then we met the Concord (Calif.) Rotary Club.  They offered to fund the first phase of a housing project: for Massembeh school — 5 rooms (for ten teachers).  The teachers agreed that they would all return, if they could at least see some hope for future housing.  The School Management Committee, Village Development Council, and village chief (alkalo) all pledeged their support, and agreed to provide all the unskilled labor.  Work began.

The work was beautifully done.  The entire village turned out to celebrate.

And happiest of all were the teachers.

It is a virtuous cycle:  A school gets much-needed support.  More girls enroll.  Women teachers come.  Women teachers don't leave, because they feel supported.  Girls stay in school.  Girls want to pursue careers; many will become teachers.  

As always, those involved drive the process.  But at crucial moments, when outside support can make all the difference, we are on the ground in the community and try to find ways to provide critical support without creating dependencies.  To Concord Rotary, we join the community of Massembeh in saying thank you.

We are delighted when we can make life better for young teachers, but as long as many potential students (especially girls) cannot afford the uniforms and supplies that enable them to go to school, that must remain our primary focus.  Address that is the starting point for permanent change both for the students and for the culture.  Your reliable and dependable support month after month, year after year, makes that possible. 

The September start of the new school year is fast approaching.  Our waiting list is getting longer every day.  To those who are donating monthly, have donated already, or will donate at year's end, THANK YOU.  To those who have not recently, please do.  Not one penny will be used for overhead; it will all go to supporting students.  A donation of $3 per month gets a pre-teen back in school, and  $25 per month supports a teacher candidate at Gambia College.

Let's keep the momentum until everyone in The Gambia is literate; until educated women are the majority; and the barbarisms of the past are a distant memory.

Mike McConnell
Managing Trustee
GambiaRising
www.gambiarising.org
 
1500 Park Avenue #503
Emeryville, CA  94608