Wednesday 23 November - A day in Banjul

To begin with, more microscopes... Our first visit was back to Gambia SSS, to see how the top Science set of Grade 12 had managed to set up their new microscopes. Despite only having had a short time to prepare, the staff and students had done an amazingly good job – the microscopes were set up along a tiled bench running beside the windows of the main Science laboratory, i.e. in the best place for illumination via the tilting mirrors.

The impression I got from these students was most heart-warming – they showed enthusiasm, a desire to learn through using the equipment and considerable talent in their ability to draw and discuss what they could see.

Our next visit was to St Augustine Upper Basic School, initially to visit a newly sponsored student, Modou. The headmaster had said to Kemo how pleased he was that this particular student had been sponsored, as he was doing extremely well in his lessons but had fallen so far behind in paying his fees that he had been in danger of being excluded from school this term. We also visited the newly constructed woodwork workshop, where the children are both taught carpentry and joinery and encouraged to help to make tables and benches for use in school. The craftsman in charge of this workshop, Baba Suwaki, said how pleased the school is with the new woodwork facility, which is due to a lot of hard work by Pageant member Keith Farrington. He also put in a request for more tools – in particular ripsaws, rasps, cross-cut saws, planes, wood clamps and vices and marking and mortise gauges.

Then to Crab Island Upper Basic School, where we met the newly appointed headmistress, Mrs Admire Loum. We were pleased to meet her and to see that the appearance of the school had been considerably improved since our last visit – no litter, swept corridors and classrooms, clean work surfaces and a general air of order and endeavour about the whole school. She took us to see the two completed computer rooms – again, the results of Keith Farrington's efforts. Both these rooms are now completely networked and are connected to the Internet and the children are doing some real computer studies, rather than just playing games – it has taken a long time to achieve this level of competence, but the school now has something that it can be really proud about. Much of the credit has to go to the new head teacher, who has insisted that the donated equipment is used properly and that the electricity bills are paid and the networks installed – she has been ably assisted by the newly appointed Computing assistant, pictured here, who has been able both to keep the computers running properly and to prepare lessons and worksheets for the children's classes.

After our visit to the computer room we went past a cooking lesson to the metal and woodwork classrooms (another KF production!). These have been established rather longer than that of St Augustine's and the teachers were pleased to show us the frames they have made up as jigs for making the metal frames for tables and benches, again for school use.

The idea behind these wood- & metal-work enterprises is that, once they have fulfilled the needs of their own schools, they will eventually be able to bring in funds by making furniture at reasonable prices for other schools in the area, many of whom need such things but do not have the money to buy them at a commercial price.

For more news about Crab Island School see the Crab Island Page. Also there is a previous news item referring to St Augustine's Schools on News Page 3 Jan 2004