At least once a year, I get on a plane to visit face to face with the leadership of the 50 heroic Gambians who run our program in The Gambia.  I'm always so glad I do.  As a bonus, this year there is a new American Ambassador, Sharon Cromer, who came from USAID and is sincerely interested in The Gambia's development.  There is also a new Peace Corps Country Director, Siiri Morley, who joined my meeting at the Embassy and with whom I had lunch beforehand.  Siiri comes from the non-profit world and is equally committed.  How can you not look forward to meeting someone whose Linked-In description starts with "I am a tenacious, creative change-maker...."  It was really great to tell them in about the work we've been doing; it was also terrific that one of our Coordinators, Ebrima Minteh (who works at the Embassy) was invited to the meeting.  The Ambassador even said she wants to visit his home when he and his wife Mariama are giving out books and uniforms to students this September!

College costs will need to rise, I am sure, but the current $210 per year is far too little to charge for a good teachers' education. We'll just have to find a way to keep up. He was delighted to hear that we are supporting 387 students at Gambian institutions of higher learning this year. 

After years of stagnating, infrastructure in The Gambia is finally improving. Three bridges now cross the River Gambia.  The airport is somewhat improved.  But most dramatic this year is the radical improvement to the Coastal Road and the road to the airport.  

Overpasses at Brusubi turntable, Sinchu Alhagie, and one underway for Pipeline at the Standard Chartered Bank (the junction also known as "traffic light").  Meanwhile, of course, there are a lot of detours.  But when I headed upcountry, not much had changed at all.

When the program was younger, I could try to visit most of our students on my annual trips.  Now, I resign myself to viewing their videos throughout the year, and meeting small groups along the way, and a few former students if we are lucky.  We do make sure to gather our leadership team and plan for the coming year.  And in any year in which donors have specifically given funds for a building project or two, I want to see those as well.  So in Jattaba, I stopped by to see the housing that the teachers there had built for themselves in an abandoned classroom block with materials we funded. We had seen videos of these teachers building the rooms, so it was great to see the housing, and to meet them. (Yes, that is the head teacher laying bricks and also leading our meeting.)

Then on up the road to Wurokang, where a Dutch couple raised funds in 2018 to start to build housing for the school's teachers. When I visited the school last year, we saw the still unfinished project; no work had been done in five years.  A California teen-ager got the fundraising started, then Lantern Projects featured it in their newsletter, and finally, the Concord (Calif.) Rotary Club supplied all the needed funds to put the project over the top and add toilets and bathing rooms as well.  It was completed over the Christmas holidays.  Needless to say, a ceremony was called for, and the village chief (alkalo), Head Teacher, School Management Committee Chair, Mother's Club President, and one of the teachers all wanted to convey their gratitude.

These teachers' housing projects can make or break the ability of a village school to attract and retain good teachers, and if we can find dedicated funds for such projects in the future, we will certainly be delighted.  But our focus must remain on our mission: helping young people stay in school.

Heading up to where our upcountry program is centered in Fula Bantang, I got to visit with old friends and see the campus of the senior secondary school we built there (some of the trees are now ten feet high!).  But it was my visit to Brikamaba that was particularly heartening.  A former student there, Alieu Kandeh, had received support from a local man to go to school at Brikamaba through 12th grade. He then got scholarships from the Gambian government to attend both Gambia College and UTG. Not done yet, he applied to Southern Illinois University in Edwardsville (SIUE), outside of St. Louis, and received a full scholarship to study for his master's degree in chemistry, graduating last year. (He did this all on his own; we supplied only his plane ticket to St. Louis, and some liaison with the school administration.) Upon graduation, Alieu contacted the principal of his old senior school, asking how he could support those like him.  He decided to offer scholarships for 10 promising but needy 10th graders at the school, and asked if we would coordinate it.  We were already working at the school, and agreed to do so, and then decided to match him, for a total of 20 scholarships.  It was wonderful to talk with the new principal about his plans to re-vitalize the school, and to meet some of the students.

Many of our Coordinators see each other only once a year, so our annual leadership meetings are becoming a bit like reunions.  Each one of them brings their own perspective and experience, and every opinion is important.  As college and university become a bigger part of our program each year, we are becoming deluged with appeals, most from students who have started college, paid only part of their tuition, and then have been unable to make their next tuition payment and so are about to be sent home.  We hammered out a set of eligibility requirements which will allow us to sort these applications more easily, and also a committee of Coordinators who will be charged with narrowing the field to whatever number of students our fund-raising that year will support.

That left just enough time for a visit to the Peace Corps offices to see old friends and meet new staff members.  Every program manager there is new, but Sarjo Dumbuya is overseeing both programs and training.  I was also able to meet with several former students, and then had a closing lunch with some of our current college and university students.  It was wonderful to meet new students and a few old acquaintances, and it is great to be reminded of the incredible impact that your donations and the Coordinators' hard work is having on the lives of these young Gambians.  I was particularly delighted to see Saratou Baldeh, who we began supporting just over 10 years ago in Fula Bantang. With our support, she stayed in school through 12th grade, was valedictorian of the first graduating class of St. Therese's Senior Secondary School, and today is a third year nursing student in the BSc program at the University of The Gambia.  Her goal?  To return to Fula Bantang and work at the St. Lazarus clinic there.  She is so grateful for the chance she has been given; she treasures it and clearly works hard to show us and the world that we did not make a mistake in backing her.

There is much more news but I will save it for future letters.  I am so grateful to be part of this remarkable system, and for the donations that not only let us keep our promises this year, and also to add some new students in January.  I know of nothing more satisfying than telling a young person that they can go back to or stay in school.  If you are part of making that happen, I thank you from the bottom of my heart.  If you are not (yet) or haven't contributed recently, please do so at whatever level you can.  The stakes are so high and they have nowhere else to turn.  We still turn away more students than we can help, so anything you give will truly change someone's life.  And when we give them a chance, they make so much out of it.

Mike McConnell
Managing Trustee
GambiaRising
www.gambiarising.org
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