PAGEANT - "Education is the future"
Fundraising
The money to fund Pageant's activities comes from a variety of sources. On this page we list some of the ways we get our funding. If you are planning to run a sponsored event to raise funds for Pageant, then you should go to our Fundraisers' Page. If you want to make a donation, the please see our Online Donation Page. There is a list of other ways you can help Pageant on our Information Page.
Membership Fees
Membership fees provide a strong foundation in funding Pageant's overheads. All of Pageant's running expenses are taken out of membership fees, so everything raised by other methods goes 100% to Pageant's projects.
Donations and Charity Events
Online Donation We welcome individual donations and we have an online donation page where you can select to donate to one of several Pageant projects. As Pageant is a UK Registered Charity we can reclaim basic rate tax for all UK taxpayers. In this way your donation can be increased by (More about how Gift Aid works) The online donation page and all our forms have this option, and there is also a separate GiftAid form for those sending cheques by post.
Shopping Online and Raising Money for Pageant If you already shop online, here is a way to raise money for Pageant at the same time as you shop. EasyFundraising is a shopping directory with over 3,700 online retailers on its list. Each of these makes a donation of a small percentage of the purchase price to Pageant, but it doesn't cost you an extra penny. If you shop with Amazon, they will donate 0.5% of the purchase price with their Smile scheme. EasyFundraising also has a search engine which earning money for Pageant each time you do a search. (more about EasyFundraising and more about Amazon Smile)
Legacy A sadly missed Pageant member, Elizabeth Fisher, remembered Pageant in her will with a generous donation towards the Artemisia Project, helping in the fight against malaria.
Horsham Rotary Club have been a great source of help to Pageant, and our thanks go to all their members for their generosity. In July 2007 they presented Pageant with a cheque for £1000 from their International Committee. (more about Horsham Rotary Club) In October 2008, they gave us a further £200, while in July 2008 the ladies of Horsham Inner Wheel raised £650 for us by organising a Ram Roast. (more about the Ram Roast) In May 2012 they gave Pageant a donation of £250 towards our appeal to rebuild the water tower at SHM Nursery School in Gunjur. (more about SHM water tower)
Mayor of Haslemere's charity £3700 was raised for Pageant by the Mayor of Haslemere, Brian Howard, during his 2006-2007 year of office. (more about Mayor of Haslemere's charity This was used to provide 32 locally made desk units for Campama Lower Basic School.
The Boar's Head, Horsham raised £127 at an 'Out of Africa' evening. (more about the 'Out of Africa evening)
Mannings Heath Millennium Club raised £675 for Pageant in a 'Last Night of the Proms' party in 2008. (more about Mannings Heath Millenium Club)
Christ Church in Braintree, Essex raised £350 for Pageant during Advent 2008. Instead of sending individual Christmas cards to each other, church members all signed one large card, and the money they would otherwise have spent on cards and postage was donated to Pageant. Contributions were linked to items in the nativity story, and to Pageant's ethical gifts scheme: Joseph - Carpentry Tools and Training; Stars - Solar Lanterns. (Christ Church website)
Sponsorship
Primary education in The Gambia is provided free by the state, but the family must still pay for books, food, uniform and travel. Tuition fees are charged for secondary and further education. Children often miss out on education, because their parents cannot afford to send them to school. Pageant's Sponsorship Scheme is a fundraising initiative which channels donations directly to the student.
Our Sponsorship Page explains how this works, the Sponsorship in Action Page tells stories of some of Pageant's sponsored children, and our Sponsorship Enquiry Page shows students who require sponsorship.
Ethical Gifts
Pageant has an Ethical Gifts Scheme,
which operates all year long. There is a list of ethical gifts
ranging in value from
upward.
You purchase a 'Gift Token' for your friend or relative, and schools, children or villagers in The Gambia benefit from an ethical gift which is sure to be greatly appreciated.
At Christmas we supply the Gift Tokens in a specially designed Pageant Christmas Card.
Fêtes, carnivals, concerts, raffles etc.
Horsham Fun Days Pageant regularly takes part in the Horsham Fun Days organised by the Horsham Rotary Club, with a stall selling Gambian produce, and dispensing information.
Paintings Raffles In 2004, artist Joan Dobie donated an original watercolour 'Fishing boats coming out of Banjul at dawn'. This was raffled at the Altantic Hotel in Banjul, raising £200, which was used to buy mosquito nets for the village of Jarreng. In 2005 Pageant sent a further £1100 for nets and insecticide. £600 of this was raised by raffling paintings of The Gambia and £500 was a donation made by a member specifically for this purpose.
Vivace! Concerts In November 2007, and again in November 2008, the acclaimed Sussex choir Vivace! gave concerts in Southwater Parish Church, with their usual wide range of music; plainsong, sixteenth century, Broadway shows, rock ’n roll and African music. In 2007 they raised £350 for Pageant (more about 2007 Vivace! concert) and in 2008 another £236 (more about 2008 Vivace! concert) (also see the Vivace! website)
UK Schools
Pageant is very proud of the efforts of its younger members and the involvement of UK schools in its work in The Gambia. In this section we will tell the story of how UK schools have helped to raise money for their Gambian counterparts, and say an official 'Thank you' to some of our younger members who have been raising funds for Pageant.
Bishops Waltham Junior School - Gambian Mini-market & Worldclass Fayre
Bishops Waltham Junior School in Hampshire, formerly known as Ridgemede School, runs a Worldclass Club, linking its children with Gambian schools – originally Abuko Lower Basic School, currently Banyaka LBS. The club members all have pen friends at Banyaka and correspond regularly. Pageant has run two mini-markets for Gambian craft items at at Bishops Waltham. The Worldclass children have themselves run stalls during school hours and a Worldclass Fayre, raising lots of money to sponsor children at Abuko. The total sum raised so far is well over £4,300.
One of the Bishops Waltham pupils, Peter, sponsored a Gambian boy, Ebrima, entirely by his own efforts, with a sponsored run, other fund-raising events and lots of jobs at home. There is more about Bishops Waltham Junior School on Pageant's Bishop Waltham web page.
Chestnut Grove School
Chestnut Grove School in Balham, South London, has had an association with Banyaka Lower Basic School in The Gambia since 2003. They have an annual fundraising event, which pays for the sponsorship of two students, and also for many improvements at Banyaka.
Their fundraising over the period 2009-2011 totalled £2273. Their 2009-10 fundraising paid for new windows and floor for the Bahyaka school library. Their 2010-11 fundraising allowed work to start on a new toilet block. More recently, fund-raising has been carried out by ‘Friends of Chestnut Grove’ – they have raised £2,500 to date. There is more about Chestnut Grove School on Pageant's Chestnut Grove web page.
the library in use as a classroom
before the books were moved in
Dame Tipping School - Lent Games Fundraising
Since early 2004 Dame Tipping CE Primary School in Havering-Atte-Bower, Essex, has run a special fund-raising idea that they call Lent Games. The children themselves devise games and competitions and charge each other to play them. This goes on for a large part of the Spring Term and is a source of great activity and enjoyment to teachers and children. The total sum raised so far is over £4,300 - this originally sponsored two boys to go to school for nine years, as well as providing art materials and sports equipment such as skipping ropes and footballs that could be shared by all the children in the two boys' classes. More recently the school has supported two girls in an up-country village.
Christ's Hospital School
Pupils at Christ's Hospital School, near Horsham, have raised over £1000 for Pageant projects, by Chapel Collections, a Rugby Sevens Tournament and sales of a School Magazine. Since 2004, two houses, Peele A and Peele B have run an annual Arts' Festival to raise funds to sponsor Gambian children. The first one was Alieu, with enough funds raised to provide sports gear and science equipment for his class and, in 2006 football kit for his school. They play to a packed audience of their school fellows, who pay a small sum each to watch a really great show. More recently they have funded Sarjo and Ebrima, the total raised by the Festival being over £3,600 to date.
Four of the Peele boys raised more funds to visit The Gambia themselves and met all three of ‘their’ students in 2013. (more about Christ's Hospital fundraising)
Ben's story In 2005, Ben, a 10 year old pupil at Warnham CE School, and his sisters had been sponsoring a child at Jarreng for some time. He then put together a Power-point presentation for his school, and organised a fund raising day, which realised £200. (more about Ben's presentation)
Toilets & Textbooks
The Toilets & Textbooks project was undertaken during 2008 by
Oakham School
in Rutland in cooperation with the
Copenhagen International School,
(CIS) in Denmark. The aim was to raise funds to provide a new toilet
block, and to provide texbooks and other educational materials for
Kings Kid Academy
in Lamin. Their final total was £4781.87, which includes £915.29 raised by
Nigel Walsh
from sponsorship from running the 2008 Comrades Marathon.
(further details of the T&T project)
Downsend School in Leatherhead raised an amazing £4,932.94 over the 2007-2008 school year. Most was raised during a Charity Week at the end of the 2008 summer term. Pageant are still considering how best to use this money for projects in the Gambia. (more about Downsend School fundraising)
Trafalgar School Secret Market Pageant's stall at the 'secret market' held at the school in December 2008 raised £170. This was used to support the link between Trafalgar and Kings Kid Academy in The Gambia. (more about Trafalgar School Secret Market)
There are now many UK schools helping Pageant with an even larger number of schools in The Gambia. We have produced an Index of Gambian Schools and an Index of UK Schools to bring together as much of this information as possible.