Everyone knew that Kaddyatou B. was the brightest girl in her Upper River Region junior secondary school. She never knew her father, but her mother was very proud of her. Then Kaddyatou's mother died. It is not clear who in the family then decided she should be married, but she dropped out of school and was married.  

We give wide latitude to our Coordinators to budget their funds as best they see fit. But Ensa's budget for the new school year was already approved, and the funds were fully committed to other students. He knew that teenage girls are special cases for us, so he got in touch with Ebrima Sanneh, the senior Coordinator with whom he had been working.  Ebrima knew this was important and told us the story. 

GambiaRising doesn't have a big endowment into which to dip. We do have several hundred committed donors who come back year after year, and we fully commit their donations to students whom we will support at least through 12th grade, and then for the best and brightest, through college or university. But despite being short of funds at this time of year, we really had no choice but to promise to support Kaddyatou to go back to school. We immediately said we would support her through 12th grade, and, we understand that we will probably want to support her beyond that. 

Schools were about to close for the summer rainy season.  But Kaddyatou said she did not want to wait until September to get back to school. She wanted to go now. So last week, she went back to school. Ensa went back to her village and held her child while she received the learning materials. And by the end of her first week back, the school notified her that she was doing well enough in her class that they had decided to promote her to 9th grade in the new school year.

This is how GambiaRising works. In the U.S. we decide how much money we believe we will be able to commit to the coming school year.  Then we, working with our Gambian Coordinators, set priorities for how those funds will be used. Only those on the ground can possibly know in detail how best to deploy the funds we commit, and if they find ways to save money to do more with the funds, they will also decide how best to use the freed-up money. But one thing has been clear from the very start: teen-age girls come first.

Despite the growing numbers of young Gambians we are helping, we are still so small compared to the problem. We don't know about the hundreds of other Kaddyatous, because we still don't work in most Gambian schools and villages. 

So this is the time of year when we thank everyone who has already contributed or is donating monthly. You are the foundation of this program. It is also a great time for those who have not yet donated, to do so. September and January are when we will need the bulk of new funds.

And we want to make a special plea to those who have don't donated lately, or who once donated monthly and stopped for one reason or another. Your donations, no matter how small, make a real difference. We spent $38 to get Kaddyatou back in school,  But we will need to commit closer to $300 to get her through the 12th grade. After that, the costs for college will really increase.  Is there really any better use of $38 than getting this brilliant young woman back into school? 

Please join (or re-join) us so we can keep helping more young people who are increasingly finding their way to our Coordinators' doors.  The reality is that in nearly every case, if we can't help, no one will.

Thank you for being part of GambiaRising and for giving young people like Kaddyatou the chance they deserve.

Mike McConnell
Managing Trustee
GambiaRising
www.gambiarising.org

1500 Park Ave. #503
Emeryville, CA  94608