April 2008

We were hoping to have enough money to build the wall around the perimiter of the school, but had to renegotiate with the builder. What we agreed on was to have the 1 metre of blockwork with a 2 metre pillar every 4 metres. This was started while we were out there and should be finished shortly. We are now waiting for the quote for the school gates and the railings to go between the pillars. This will be done when we have sufficient funds available.

The weak pound also means that we have to put up the cost of sponsoring a child from £12 per year to £15 per year and for those of you who are sponsoring, we will reming you when your renewal is due.

Since we were there last year an Italian company has dug the village a bore hole and piped the water to several standpipes throughout the village. The nearest one to the school is about 100 metres away and we have paid for a pipe to be run to the school and a standpipe to be put in the school grounds.This will be of obvious benefit for the children and also because our next project is to provide a vetetable garden for the children to learn about planting, growing and looking after flowers and vegetables.. We cannot do this until the wall has been completed as the animals roam around the grounds, eating anything in their path.

We had a shipment sent out just before we left the UK and also took some items with us. We were therefore able to distribute each child with a cuddly toy and a school bag to keep their pens and pencils in.We were also able to provide a complete football kit kindly donated by Bedgrove Dynamo's a local team. Pictures of both are in our picture gallery.

We are now registered as a charity in The Gambia, as "The Mason Schools Project", because we are not allowed to use the name Gambia in any title.. Because of this we spent some time making sure the teachers and school committee were able to keep correct records for the authorities to see if they should so wish.

We also went to visit the local "Lower Basic School" in the next village called Mkumbia. This is the school our pupils will go to when they move up. It is a large school of approximately 600 pupils and at the time of visiting, there was an english teacher , teaching at the school for six months. She has taken an interest in our school and also told us of a two day teaching course in "Jolly Phonics, which we managed to get our two teachers on. Jolly Phonics is a British idea of teaching spelling and words by use of sounds and movement and is used to great effect at the Lower Basic School. We were able to see the results of the course by the way the teachers tought, before we left.

The two teachers have now completed their first year at training college and the improvement was there for all to see, so we were very pleased.

Thank you all for your support, we could not do it without you.